The copper current collector, grown in solution instead of rolled from metal.
A lithium-ion cell carries roughly a tenth of its mass in copper foil. That foil moves electrons and does nothing else. No lithium, no capacity, no energy. It is the largest inert mass in the cell, and every gram of it is carried up every hill and into every flight hour.
It is also the line in the bill of materials most exposed to price and to policy. Copper set an all-time high this year, and imported foil now carries a 50% tariff.
Cell makers have wanted the copper out for a decade. The only alternative anyone has proven at scale is made in Asia, on vacuum lines, and still cannot be welded into a real cell.
Airfoil CC6 replaces the 6 µm copper foil on the anode. We grow copper nanoparticles out of solution onto a porous polyethylene film, through the pores and across both faces. No vacuum chamber. No applied current. One continuous, roll-to-roll wet process.
The pores are the point. Copper deposits through the film, so both faces are one conductor rather than two skins on an insulator.
The composite current collector stopped being a question when the category's largest cell maker shipped one. What is not settled, six years and several billion renminbi later, is how to make it.
Even the best wet routes in the category still electroplate after seeding, which means rectifiers, contact clamps and edge losses. We do not plate at all. That is the narrow claim, and it is the one that is ours.
Every composite collector shipped so far is two isolated copper skins on a plastic insulator. There is no metal path between the faces, so the tab joint has to be made through the polymer. This is the category's acknowledged blocker, and it is a property of the substrate, not of the plating.
Copper grown through the pores makes the two faces one conductor. Joint resistance stops being a function of skin thickness. We have welded in early production-style trials, and independent validation this fall tests it in commercial formats.
Coin and multilayer pouch cells cycling with adhesion validated. Cylindrical formats under test, and a 160 mm by 100 m spec set for the fall validation runs.
A lab R2R coating line producing meter-scale continuous film. US contract manufacturers screened for scale-up.
Michigan MTRAC funding has paid for the pilot work to date, with a federal translation proposal pending. Independent techno-economic analysis and third-party validation are already funded.
Every milestone above was paid for with grant and university money. The technology was invented in the Fang Lab at Michigan State University. Airfoil is being formed to commercialize it, with Spartan Innovations and the MSU Research Foundation.
Battery commercialization from cell to system. Chief Strategy Officer at Our Next Energy: seed to two factories, several products in market, $700M+ raised. Led advanced-cell programs including the BMW anode-free effort. DOE workforce advisory board under two administrations.
Assistant Professor at Michigan State. PhD under Shirley Meng at UC San Diego; lithium-metal failure diagnosis published in Nature. Four core battery IP families. Invented the electroless composite collector and runs the research pipeline.
We are qualifying design partners in defense, drones, aviation and specialty cells — anywhere a gram of inert mass is worth paying to remove.
deeana@ijazpartners.com