차세대 리튬 배터리 스타트업 - 비이아이랩

[Innovation, Meet Startups] Next-generation lithium battery startup - BEI Lab

Eom Jeong-han, Partner and Patent Attorney at BLT Patent Law Firm

2020.12.02 00:00

A common concern when it comes to the future of technology, whether it be drone taxis, self-driving cars, electric vehicles, or unmanned ships, is the battery.

Second-generation lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged multiple times have dramatically increased the battery life of tech today. Lithium-ion batteries are lightweight and can be recharged multiple times, which has increased battery life for smartphones, smart watches, and tablets, bringing humanity into the era of phono-sapiens, or of digital civilization. The innovation of smartphones has led to dreams of self-driving cars or riding drones as taxis. But these same lithium-ion batteries come up against many obstacles when used in vehicles or aircraft. Electric cars can spontaneously combust, and 40% of the vehicle’s price can be attributed to the battery alone. Its fatal flaw, however, is that the output and capacity is too low to be a sustainable power source for a moving vehicle.

Across the globe, companies are competing to solve the problem of lithium-ion batteries with new battery technology. One of the technologies attracting the most attention is the lithium metal battery. A lithium metal battery replaces graphite, the anode material of lithium-ion batteries, with lithium metal. This improves battery capacity from 2 times to up to 10 times. However, because a metallic lithium cathode is used, sharp crystals (dendrites) form on the cathode during the charging process and damage the interface, making mass production out of reach. If high-output, high-capacity lithium metal batteries can be mass-produced, they can be used in drone taxis, electric cars, and aircrafts, and this will spark a new revolution in how we go about our daily lives.

Patent Attorney Eom Jeonghan (BLT Patent Law Firm)

BEI Lab (CEO Bae Chang-deuk, Ph.D) is a startup that works on preventing dendrite growth when charging lithium metal batteries. Bae is a former research professor at Sungkyunkwan University and an entrepreneur. He has devoted 19 years to studying densification film coating, publishing 50 SCI-level papers in Korea based on his results researching diverse types of material for coating cathodes. BEI Lab's unrivaled chemical manufacturing technology and compound coating technology has contributed to the ability to prevent lithium metal dendrites forming on anode materials, and this achievement has been demonstrated in experimental results. With current technology, it is difficult to charge and discharge a lithium metal battery more than 10 times, but a battery using BEI Lab's coated anode material has succeeded in charging and discharging more than 80 times. The lithium metal battery using his team’s cathode material showed the same electric capacity as a battery using an uncoated cathode material. This has led to the development of next-generation batteries that are safe and can be repeatedly charged and discharged multiple times while maintaining high electrical capacity. Such achievements are possible because BEI Lab does not stop at simply researching materials in the lab, but goes so far as to manufacture the equipment as well. Founded by a Ph.D in robotics engineering and a Ph.D in new materials engineering, BEI Lab is able to independently manufacture equipment used for coating cathodes. This gives flexibility to quickly modify experiments and solve problems related to lithium metal batteries quicker than others.

According to a report released by the World Economic Forum, the size of the global battery market in 2030 will exceed 350 trillion won. The darling of the chemical technology industry, batteries will drive Korea's exports after semiconductors, automobiles, displays, ships, and smartphones. The semiconductor material and equipment companies currently dominating the stock market and KOSDAQ were themselves startups in the semiconductor field 10-20 years ago. We fully expect BEI Lab to experience dramatic growth as one of the few Korean battery startups.

■Who is Eom Jeong-han?

After graduating from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University's College of Engineering, Eom worked in programming and business development at a KOSDAQ-listed company.

He has founded three businesses since his early 20s and is currently a partner patent attorney at BLT Patent Law Firm, which counts more than 800 startups, including tech companies, as clients. After making more than 20 angel investments, Eom recently founded Company B, an official Ministry of SMEs and Startups accelerator that has invested in over 40 startups. He is also author of a book called “Doing Business with Patents”.

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