Funding landed for crystal sulphur battery technology that could slash weight of EV batteries

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• the company hopes to be able to increase the cycle life of sulphur-based batteries .... There is still a way to go but .....

  The very definition of vaporware.

  vapourware
  /ˈveɪpəwɛː/
  noun informal•Computing
  noun: vaporware

  1. software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed

  • lol - and this article is now the 2nd result for when I searched Theion sulfur battery for extra information..

    This is a good example of journalism by Press Release..

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    • Well even if it is straight from the press release it appears to be factually reporting achievement of venture capital funding external to the company. Some person/people are prepared to invest real money to pursue the concept further. I'm not running out to invest, but I am interested to be aware of the technology and the startup company. Lets see what happens over several years. Hopefully some working prototypes will emerge.

  • Reminds me of a lot of elon's speculative fiction.

  • Nope. Vaporware is Tesla FSD or Roadster 2.

  • There was a time when people could have called aircraft, steam engines, electric lighting, rockets and submarines 'vaporware'. Commercializing science, especially to the unscientific, happens so slowly that uninformed people doubt it can be done. New technology is incomprehensible to those outside the field. The only issue I have with this is that thankfully there are people who, either for science or profit, push the frontiers of technology. If they didn't we would still be living in caves.

    • That's all good stuff but this site usually focuses on the finished or imminent product.

• "Could, might, may, in the future..."

  Meanwhile I don't think lithium based batteries are going anywhere any time soon

• May be more relevant to electric aircraft with ranges exceeding 1000s of kilometres, Is 3x3x3 for energy density, weight, capacity, and volume or is there a choice of one of these factors. Perhaps a switch? Still a single 3x is good for many purposes.

  • The first thing that came to my mind was the equivalent of a jerry can.

    • yep. and if only the internal combustion engine didn't produce greenhouse gases and wasn't 1/6th as efficient as electric engines.

• There's a site (not worth visiting) that publishes this sort of gee whiz, works in my back room sort of experimentation on a daily basis.
  Doesn't belong here.

  • Why not? It's new technology under development - I for sure want to hear about it.

    • Here's why Arnie.
      Article from 2015.
      https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/02/10/249342/why-we-dont-have-battery-breakthroughs/

      Most of these 'breakthroughs' - even if they have convinced someone to fund the work, just don't amount to anything.
      There needs to be a balance between copying every press release from these sorts of companies, and reporting closer to when there is actually something notable. I agree with our resident South African cricketer.

• What happens when a sulphur battery is ruptured?

  • It stinks...

• To all the nay sayers and those who believe this is vapourware: it's Series A funding. Just look up what that means. Series A funding comes after seed funding and is for turning ideas into a successful business. Which means more development but you have an investor who believes this can be successful.

  Vapourware would be the various announcements (mainly Toyota related) of hydrogen and associated "new" ICE that supposedly will kill off BEV.

  • Did a quick search in the archive of Geladen, der Batteriepodcast. Some bits of info from 2022: Almost all elemental sulfur is produced as a byproduct of removing sulfur-containing contaminants from natural gas and petroleum. Realistic cycle life of a production lithium-sulphur cell is less than 100 cycles down to 80% SoH. Longer cycle life can be achieved by lowering the energy density.

    Now - in 2025 - Theion's website mentions a "high cycle life of >1000" for "land mobilty" applications. However, their product roadmap on the same website mentions a slightly different story: 1000 cycles is the aim in phase 3, 500 cycles in phase 2, and no cycle life goal yet in phase 1.

    BTW, they call their battery "Kristallbatterie". Not sure if that is such a good idea...

    • There's a faint whiff of vested about arnie's interest in this subject.

      • Get your nose checked out. Or better still, check LinkedIn before commenting.

        • What i meant of course, is that arnie mows the lawn for someone who works there. Your fanaticism for an already tested innovation reflects badly on you.

          LinkedIn?
          Clandestine dating site.

• “Theion’s crystal sulphur battery delivers three-times higher energy density than conventional lithium-ion batteries at one-third the cost and one-third the carbon footprint”

  Yeah… I’ll wait until I see it.

  • Sounds a bit oversold. Achievement of just one of those with otherwise comparable performance to current mass market batteries would be a big advantage though. Much lighter weight even with high cost would still give a significant market. Comparable performance with inherently lower production cost before mass production could give a huge market. Looking forward to hearing of actual prototypes on the road or attached to a test grid doing thousands of cycles.

• *Ancient Greek, for anyone interested in that kind of thing.

  Here's hoping this gets off the ground - in more ways than one.

• Good to see there is still research into different battery chemistries that may prove superior. A long way to go before satisfactory longevity is achieved though. Dozens of research projects that look promising at early stages will fail eventually but if we just get one or two new batteries that have significant advantages over Lithium we'll further progress the replacement of fossil fuels.

• So, by the time this gets to market, in x years time, lithium batteries will have continued on it's development and cost reduction path.
  It's going to be hard to dethrone lithium.

  • The battery type discussed in this article is a lithium-sulphur battery. But I agree if you mean that it is still a long way from dethroning NMC or LFP (and several other lithium-ion chemistries) batteries.