Firefly Energy India has announced the licensing of the battery technology from the USA based Firefly International Energy, post which it plans to manufacture and introduce the deep cycle batteries in Ahmedabad, India. These batteries are based on patented and revolutionary carbon foam technology and have multiple applications in locomotives, power stations, UPS, automotives and telecom towers.
These environment-friendly batteries will replace the conventional lead acid units used in vehicles and generators and are targeted at high-end applications. Unlike the conventional lead acid batteries, the carbon foam batteries are designed to take deep discharge cycles and can last up to 1200 cycles, thrice the life of the existing VRLA batteries. Apart from being light-weight, these batteries can withstand extreme weather conditions, have extremely rapid recharge capability and are 98% recyclable.
“Firefly Energy has developed a method to coat the membrane, a fan-like lead lattice that allows the battery to generate electrons, with carbon foam. This development means a more efficient battery that can extract more electricity from the active chemistry, release more electricity per charge, and endure more charging cycles. This also makes the battery last longer. The foam gives the membrane a larger surface area for reactions”, said Kurtis C Kelley, Chief Technical Officer, Firefly International Energy (USA), the Inventor of Carbon Foam Technology Batteries in the world, while talking to the media today in New Delhi.
“Although traditional lead acid battery technology has had many decades of ongoing development, new demands are stretching its fundamental design capabilities to the limit. Notwithstanding its relatively low cost, many industries, such as the Electric Vehicle industry, have been forced by these limitations to turn to much more expensive technologies that hold significant issues of their own. The timing is certainly right for a technology that breaks through the above-described design constraints, unharnessing the innate capability of lead-acid and enables new levels of performance, reliability, and affordability from well-proven lead acid chemistry” explained Mr Mukesh Bhandari, Chairman & CEO of Firefly Energy India Limited.
The promoters of Firefly Energy India include the promoters of Ahmedabad headquartered 2500-crore turnover technology conglomerate Electrotherm (I) Limited.
Giving more details about the technology, Mr Kelley said, “In the advanced battery architectures that Firefly has perfected, the Microcell Technology™ composite foam “grids” are impregnated with a slurry of lead oxides, which are then formed up to the sponge lead and lead dioxide in the normal fashion. Because of the foam structure, the resultant negative and positive plates have enormous surface-area advantages over conventional lead acid grid structures. This results in much-improved active material utilization levels, as well as enhanced fast-recharge capability and greater high-rate / low-temperature discharge times. The single advantage of Firefly’s Microcell Technology™ is that it fundamentally changes the performance of active materials within the lead acid cell due to its unique architecture. Such a structure results in much higher power and energy delivery and rapid recharge capabilities relative to conventional lead acid products.”
“At present, there are vast and critical new challenges in the field of energy storage and management. We at Firefly Energy India believe that these challenges require nothing less than a revolution in the way we think of battery power. Firefly Energy India is poised to overcome long-standing performance bottlenecks of existing batteries by utilizing fresh, untapped technologies, with a strategic vision to create market-driven, cost-effective solutions to the energy challenges of today and tomorrow. The improvements brought about by Firefly’s new technology are so fundamental and far-reaching that they have the potential to bring tremendous value to a broad cross-section of the traditional battery market like UPS, inverters, telecom and railways. The company wants to be the world's foremost supplier of breakthrough battery technology that attains new levels of price / performance, efficiency, and durability while being easily recyclable” said Mr Bhandari.
Finally, the technology developed by Firefly Energy reduces both human exposure risk and hazardous waste generation. Batteries containing Firefly’s technology can be recycled through the existing lead acid recycling infrastructure. Other “advanced technology” battery alternatives, such as nickel metal hydride and lithium ion, do not have any recycling infrastructure. In fact, the battery’s owner must actually pay the recycler to take the battery! Carbon is already used to increase the temperature for the smelting of lead. Firefly’s carbon-graphite foam plate material is simply burned away – and actually is a net fuel for increasing smelting temperatures - and the remaining lead in the battery is recycled.
The Carbon foam batteries based Firefly Energy's technology has potential to do revolution in almost all the market segments. To name a few, it can help :
- Automotive manufacturers meet the challenges of the 21st century through new generation energy efficient Electric Vehicles
- Commercial sector, whether it's for transportation, construction, or maintaining the vital infrastructure, for commercial vehicles which need rugged and dependable battery power.
- To provide emissions-free mobility to From golf cars to forklifts to powered wheelchairs, which are relying more and more on battery power
- Back-up energy management and storage play a vital role in this technological age.
- For all our leisure activities of Marine/RV/Power Sports, whether it's a boat, motorcycle, snowmobile or RV, which need reliable batteries.
- For Military troops, which depend on their equipment, and the equipment depends on batteries. Nowhere are the performance demands more critical.
- Public / Mass Transportation - Public and private passenger transportation fleets who face unique challenges when it comes to the batteries that they use.
- Back up power for Inverters and UPS
- For Telecom towers where batteries are used for deep cycling
- Railways for Air-conditioning coaches and signaling applications