Cerebral Energy announces it has been selected by Space Development Agency (SDA) for a Phase II SBIR follow-on contract in the amount of $2 million to support further development of a new graphene based secondary battery derived from recycled US waste streams. The technology was originally designed and prototyped by NASA scientists and is being commercialized by Cerebral Energy to support improved satellite power in SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).
The novel graphene solid state battery architecture previously achieved over 500 W/h Kg energy density in lab prototypes. Cerebral’s graphene battery is over 3X more efficient than conventional lithium-ion batteries, much safer (no fire risk), up to 100X faster charging and has no supply chain challenges since the materials are derived from abundant US waste streams. Cerebral will be examining scalable additive manufacturing techniques for SDA in the Phase II project with additional support by AFWERX and AFRL.
The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution.
“We’re honored to be working with Space Development Agency on this leap ahead technology which will support space-based demands of our joint warfighter community while greatly improving the efficiency and safety of secondary batteries used in SDA’s PWSA,” said Eric Bentsen, Co-founder and CEO of Cerebral Energy.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, Space Development Agency, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
