
Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide - SaratogaEnergy
Hi HN,<p>I’m Drew, founder of Saratoga Energy (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saratoga-energy.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saratoga-energy.com</a>). We make better carbon nanotubes at one-fifth the price. Carbon nanotubes are a form of nano-scale carbon fibers (5,000X thinner than human hair) with remarkably high strength, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity properties. This makes them useful in a variety of commercial applications.<p>Lithium-ion batteries designed for electric cars already use carbon nanotubes to reduce heat generation during charging and to improve electrical conductivity. This results in faster charging and improved battery life. However, the cost is so high ($300&#x2F;kg) that battery manufacturers are forced to use the minimal amount, rather the optimal amount.<p>Our breakthrough in manufacturing cost enables battery manufacturers to use the optimal amount, allowing electric cars to safely recharge in 10 minutes or less. This could give electric cars the boost they need to replace gasoline engines.<p>The idea to start the company grew from an idea posed to me by my Dad back in 2012 - is there a way to transform carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into something valuable? I thought this would be an exciting challenge because most carbon dioxide technologies at the time were focused on storing it in underground caverns or converting it into commodity chemicals where it would be difficult to profit without substantial government subsidies.<p>After reading an article about Tesla’s intentions to only source raw materials that were sustainably produced in North America, we settled on developing a low-cost electrochemical process to convert carbon dioxide into graphite. Graphite is an essential energy storage material used in lithium-ion batteries. After deciding on the product, my Dad and I put together a small team of chemical engineers to help with the patents and applications for grants from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.<p>When we received our funding, we began work with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to construct small batteries to test the material we had made. We noticed that some cells would charge three, or sometimes five times faster than commercial reference materials. So we pulled the cells apart to have a look at the graphite with a high-powered microscope. All of the fast-charging graphite was matted with tiny hairs (I later learned that it sounds cooler if you call them “carbon nanotubes”).<p>We thought about it for a few days and did some research. We eventually figured out that certain metals we had tested in our production process were likely responsible for the growth of carbon nanotubes. So we isolated those metals to test the theory. It worked!<p>Now we had a process that could either grow carbon nanotubes or graphite  - both at an estimated cost under $5&#x2F;kg. The difference being that the market price for battery-grade graphite is $10&#x2F;kg and the market price for battery-grade carbon nanotubes is $300&#x2F;kg.<p>If the price of graphite is reduced from $10&#x2F;kg to $5&#x2F;kg, electric cars get a bit less expensive and the market expands a bit more. If the price of carbon nanotubes is reduced from $300&#x2F;kg to $5&#x2F;kg, electric cars cold potentially charge in about the same amount of time it takes to refill a tank of gas, which could create exponential growth in the electric car market. We discussed this with our grant manager and agreed that it made sense to pivot and scale up the carbon nanotube process - which leaves us here today in W19.<p>What’s different about our technology is that we produce carbon nanotubes through the electrolysis of molten carbonate salts. The electrochemical reaction produces carbon (nanotubes), oxygen gas, and metal oxides, which are further reacted with carbon dioxide to re-generate the carbonate salt starting material. So the net reaction is the input of energy to drive the conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon nanotubes and oxygen.<p>Industry has been using chemical vapor deposition to make carbon nanotubes since they were first discovered in 1991. We believe that our platform is better for a few reasons: 1) electrochemistry is tunable and this gives us control over the size and shape of the nanotubes, so they can be custom-tailored for specific battery chemistries and applications outside of energy storage as well; 2) the energy requirement for our manufacturing process is estimated to be 27 kWh&#x2F;kg, five times less energy intensive than chemical vapor deposition; and 3) our technology represents a value-added use for carbon dioxide, and if powered by electricity from renewable sources, would have a negative carbon footprint.<p>I think the reason nobody has commercialized this production method yet, or come up with some other high-efficiency process, is because chemical vapor deposition is relatively simple to operate and relatively simple to scale. Billions of dollars worth of chemical vapor deposition infrastructure are already established, and historically, there haven’t been many new market opportunities that would justify investing in new technologies to drive down cost.<p>Only recently have researchers demonstrated the potential for carbon nanotubes to improve the performance of new applications like advanced energy storage, high-strength carbon fibers and composites, lightweight electrical wiring, and concrete composites for roads that don’t crack. If carbon nanotubes were less expensive, these new applications could be worth billions while also creating sizable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It is our mission to bring new markets like these to life and to develop new products that best take advantage of what our carbon nanotubes have to offer.<p>I believe that we are best positioned to break this cost-curve and bring this technology to market because molten carbonate electrochemistry is not a well-known science. What we’ve learned since our foundation in 2012 is not commonly taught in universities. Our knowledge was acquired through hands-on experience and in-house development of intellectual property.<p>Hopefully some of you folks are also interested in carbon nanotubes, or at least share a mutual dislike for carbon dioxide. I’m looking forward to sharing some ideas with everyone!<p>-Drew
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narrator
So how are you guys and the rest of the industry going to manage the possible
toxicity of carbon nanotubes?[1] It seems they get into people's lungs and
then they never leave and cause mechanical damage much like asbestos
presumably leading to difficult to treat cancers. Are you going to wait for
these things to be in just about everything and then spend the next 50 years
getting sued?

[1][https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-
nanotube-d...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-nanotube-
danger/)

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
only certain types of carbon nanotubes that have a thick and rigid structure
have asbestos-like qualities. These are no longer used outside of Asia. The
thinner, flexible variety similar to the ones we make do not share these
qualities an do not penetrate cell tissue. Similar to carbon black, which is a
widely used nano-material in car tires. Carbon nanotubes are also sold in
solution and in dispersion so they cannot easily become air born.

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theunixbeard
Amazing story, very inspirational to those of us just working on CRUD apps.

Who is your father and what is his career background? I see he was
instrumental in putting you on this path. This was the quote that stuck out to
me:

> “ _After deciding on the product, my Dad and I put together a small team of
> chemical engineers to help with the patents and applications for grants from
> the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation._ ”

How much capital did you two have to risk at this stage to pay your team
before receiving the grants?

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SaratogaEnergy
Thank you! My father is an awesome guy with a unique perspective on the
future! I'd rather not get specific, but having an initial angel investor was
crucial for us to be able to generate the amount of data we needed to win our
first grant an keep things moving forward.

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YKj
I felt your idea so interesting and after searched a bit I found similar idea
as below. Could you explain the difference?
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019689041...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196890416304861)

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ams6110
> Our breakthrough in manufacturing cost enables battery manufacturers to use
> the optimal amount, allowing electric cars to safely recharge in 10 minutes
> or less.

Well that's half the battle. The other half of the problem is delivering that
amount of energy in 10 minutes, particularly in areas that are already maxing
out their capacity on hot summer days.

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mbell
My math may be a bit off but if you have a 230Ah battery (Telsa Model 3) and
you want to charge it in 10 minutes you need something on the order of 1380A
charging current even ignoring losses. At 350V, the voltage of the Tesla Model
3 battery pack, this is 483,000 Watts! There are major problems with this type
of charging happening at scale at every level of the energy grid.

~~~
mgoetzke
Most systems like this would be changed to go battery to battery with larger
stationary storage on-site being essentially refilled from the net at the
average use rate of all cars combined per day. This would delay this problem a
little

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peter_d_sherman
Hi Drew! What you're doing sounds awesome -- more power to you, both
figuratively and literally! Hey, I'd love to see an "About Us" web page on
your website with team bio's, list of VC's, etc. (Hey, you've already written
half of that page in what you've posted here!). Also, please ignore the
naysayers here. Everyone in history who has tried to advance science has
always had naysayers, it's just the nature of what you're trying to do! Good
luck, and I hope you succeed wildly!

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
Haha, thank you! Our site definitely needs an update. We have a more detailed
website in the works! I'll keep you posted!

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Anil_Uttani
Hi Drew! You are Doing Ground Breaking work here,I wish you all the Success.
If you need any help in developing website,It would be my pleasure to do
so,you can find my email in bio.

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SaratogaEnergy
Awesome. Thank you!

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avip
There seems to be a growing concern wrt HSE aspects of CNTs. Is that an issue
you're worried about (as in - worried about a possible regulatory shift)

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ams6110
HSE?

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SaratogaEnergy
HSE is health and Safety. I'm not sure what the 'E' stands for :)

~~~
doctorcroc
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment,_health_and_safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment,_health_and_safety)

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AChamarthy
Have you heard of Molecular Rebar?
[http://www.molecularrebar.com/](http://www.molecularrebar.com/)

Their CNT patent portfolio is being licensed by a company called Black Diamond
Structures, which is a joint venture with SABIC. They’re looking at battery
applications.

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
Thanks for the tip! I've heard that Molecular Rebar and Black Diamond
Structures have a great process to untangle and purify CNTs. I believe their
business model is to buy low cost CNTs from other producers and upgrade them
with their process. Maybe there's an opportunity for collaboration.

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AChamarthy
Happy to make an intro. My email is in my profile.

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SaratogaEnergy
that would be awesome. thank you! ill send you an email.

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nthompson
Can you selectively grow semiconducting tubes, or metallic tubes, or do you
only get a mixture of semiconducting and metallic?

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SaratogaEnergy
We grow conductive multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Some of the layers may be
semi-conductive. But in bulk they are a conductive material. We haven't
refined the process to the point where we can select for conductivity type
yet.

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kdme
I believe there is a competition to develop a method to collect carbon dioxide
and turn it into something useful. Did you won that competition? This seems
really promising and better than collecting CO2 and just dumping it
underground.

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dougmany
There is the Carbon XPrize but I think they are a year out from announcing
winners.

There is a team using Molten Carbonate Electrolysis to create Carbon Nano-
tubes in the competition. It sounds like the are not related based on the 2012
starting date in the post. The team lead has been working on this for 30
years.

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
We weren't ready to apply to the carbon xprize when it was announced. But
we're ready to scale quickly with Y Combinator!

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kayhi
Who are the main suppliers now at the higher price points?

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SaratogaEnergy
The main suppliers are Showa Denko, Nanocyl, Arkema, and Cnano. Their prices
range from $75/kg to $300/kg.

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sonofgod
Good luck!

How big do you see this carbon nanotube market being, and thus how much net
CO2 do you see yourself removing from the environment?

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
thanks! in the case of the cement market, carbon nanotubes have been used in
1% concentration to improve the lifespan of cement. 4 billion tons of cement
are produced every year. If carbon nanotubes where used in all new cement
mixtures, that would be 40 million tons of carbon nanotubes per year, which
would consume 148 million tons of CO2 per year. But perhaps more importantly,
carbon nanotubes would reduce the replacement frequency of cement structures.
cement production is one of the largest industrial sources of carbon dioxide
emissions.

~~~
amirhirsch
I love this area of technology and the scale of your vision. For the battery
application, do you need to use only electrically conducting nanotubes? Is
your 27kWh per kg number for single-walled electrically conducting nanotubes?
Do you need to filter out semi-conducting nano-tubes?

I think that the improvements to batteries will have a better value
proposition than strengthening concrete, though perhaps you can get away with
less filtering requirements for non-electrical applications. How much does
this strengthening increase the life-time-value of the concrete? Concrete is
under $100 per ton (poured cost, 50% of which is dry materials), and it seems
like you're talking about 50% - 150% increased cost.

At scale, you are talking about ((40 billion kg) * 27 * (kWh per kg)) / (1
year) = 123.205917 gigawatts -- to makes 1267 kg of nanotubes per second for
40 million tons of carbon nanotubes per year. 123 GW almost certainly means
hundreds of billions of dollars invested in power infrastructure for the
purposes of carbon nanotube production for concrete. If you expect to scale
with sustainability in mind, you should consider designing your entire
reaction around the renewable energy source. Perhaps you can employ similar
catalytic processes to the Co-Mo-S photo-hydrogenation from sunlight to
achieve higher efficiency per area by using sunlight more directly.

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
We like the battery idea the best as well. We've chosen that as our first
product to market. Me make multi-walled carbon nanotubes which are conductive
in bulk. Its possible that there are non-conductive layers, but they are
encased by conductive layers that counter act them. For concrete i've sen
research showing 50% improvement in strength with 1% carbon nanotube
concentration. We haven't confirmed this ourselves yet, but we are starting up
a testing program soon. We are also planning on scaling with renewables like
hydroelectric. If in the future carbon nanotubes can be used to replace
aluminum as a structural material, there may be an opportunity to use they
hydroelectric they were once operating on to power the process. But I agree,
to reach a massive scale, we will need massive renewable energy. But I think
we need that anyway!

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chroem-
How long are the continuous fibers? CNTs can do some truly insane things if
you make them long enough.

~~~
SaratogaEnergy
The CNTs we are making right now are about 10-20 microns long. Making them
longer is a focus area for us. However, the nano-materials department at Rice
has created a wet-spinning process the can bundle CNTs into continuous fiber.
They aren't quite a strong as a continuous CNT from what i've heard, but still
stronger than carbon fiber.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XDJC64tDR0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XDJC64tDR0)

~~~
chroem-
Have you characterized the anisotropy of the fibers yet? Mechanical,
electrical, or otherwise?

Also thank you for the response!

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gus_massa
Why CO2 instead of CH4? If someone else tries a similar process with CH4, will
their cost be smaller?

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SaratogaEnergy
we use CO2 because it easily absorbs into our electrolyte and ch4 does not.
ch4 is also flammable at the temperatures we operate at and this would be more
difficult to design around.

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Invictus0
Are you hiring mechanical engineers?

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SaratogaEnergy
If all goes well at demo day we'll be looking for mechanical engineers! Please
send your info!

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samstave
Can randoms purchase a Kg of CNTs from you to experiment with?

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SaratogaEnergy
Yes they can. Always looking for new applications!

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samstave
I live in The bay area, can i pickup? And what is the cost for a Kg of CNTs?

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durkie
super cool! are yall hiring materials scientists? :)

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SaratogaEnergy
YES

