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Posted on 06/19/2025 7:04:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
Astartup led by a Canadian battery chemist is racing to crack a made-in-America energy breakthrough even as Trump’s tariffs cast a long shadow over the battery supply chain.
Boston-based Pure Lithium is building a pilot plant for a new kind of lithium metal battery, one it claims could outperform today’s lithium-ion cells, and, crucially, be built entirely without Chinese inputs.
These efforts come at a crucial time for the U.S., as the world’s biggest economy moves to loosen China’s grip on the global supply of critical minerals.
China dominates minerals
China’s dominance in this space continues to pose a strategic challenge. The country accounts for around 90 percent of global rare earth production, and for certain heavy rare earths like dysprosium and terbium—essential to clean energy systems, defense equipment, and high-tech electronics—its market share was as high as 99 percent until recently.
The U.S. remains heavily dependent on these imports. In 2024 alone, China supplied half of all American critical mineral imports, including key materials such as yttrium, antimony, bismuth, and arsenic, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Led by CEO Emilie Bodoin, the startup has spent the past four years developing a lithium metal battery it believes can displace conventional lithium-ion technology.
The company’s design eliminates the need for graphite, cobalt, nickel, and manganese—minerals either sourced from or processed in China—replacing them with a streamlined system that taps lithium extracted from brine.
At its lab in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Pure Lithium uses a proprietary “Brine to Battery” process to produce a pure lithium metal anode directly from brine.
The company pairs this anode with a vanadium cathode to manufacture a next-generation battery that has already achieved more than 1,300 cycles at commercially relevant charge and discharge rates.
Thanks to the vanadium cathode’s ability to operate at temperatures up to 700°C, the battery is significantly more fire-resistant.
It also offers higher energy density—lithium metal has about 10 times the capacity of the graphite electrodes used in today’s lithium-ion batteries.
Until now, high costs, quality limitations, and environmental concerns have prevented the development of commercially viable lithium metal batteries.
Battery skips China’s grip
Pure Lithium says its approach not only boosts performance but also slashes materials costs by eliminating the need for graphite, nickel, cobalt, and manganese—key minerals often sourced or refined in China.
“We’re working as hard as we can to build a prototype pilot facility,” Bodoin said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Tuesday.
The company is currently expanding its lithium production process and integrating it into a domestic manufacturing line.
“As soon as we get it up and running,” she added, “we’re going to start getting these batteries out into the hands of US customers that need it.”
In April, the firm received a letter of interest from the US Export-Import Bank for up to $300 million in financing, a potential boost for its domestic expansion plans.
If successful, Pure Lithium could become one of the few battery startups offering a truly American-made solution at a time when Washington is rethinking its dependence on foreign supply chains.
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Sweet. Maybe they will be able to bring it to market in 10 years.
Note to Pure Lithium - Don’t hire any grad students who have just come over from China.
US startup unveils lithium battery that lasts 1,300 cycles, skips China entirely
then bursts magnificently into a ball of flame
There are lots of lithium-laden brines in northeastern Texas and southern Arkansas in the Smackover Formation. It is likely that it will extend into Mississippi and Alabama. Exxon and Chevron are now working it.
Will it burn down your garage as readily as the current ones?
Excellent!
China steals this new technology in 3,2,1....
I read the whole promising article. I didn’t see a weight listed. How big is it please?
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium...
...and a partridge in a pear tree...................
Wow. Ty.
Their website claims to have 2X the capacity at half the weight of a comparable conventional Lithium-Ion battery for 30% cheaper materials.
YMMV, but if they can even get close to these claims, then they've got something, given the other claims for charge cycles and heat resistance.
“Will it burn down your garage as readily as the current ones?”
>>>>>>>
Ha! You gave me a great laugh with that line!
I agree.
They already make batteries that will last for more cycles, but if they can reduce the weight & cost, that would be significant. Another issue is how are all these batteries going to be recycled?
Hah! It’s easy to discriminate between the smart people who read the article and the smacktards who don’t ...
Thanks for the link. The technology page is quite interesting. 400Wh/kg energy density — by comparison my BattleBorn LiFePO4 100A-h battery (roughly 1200 Wh) weighs ~10kg — so the BattleBorn is about 1/3 the energy density that PureLithium claims.
But the most important reason to be excited about PureLithium is that the CEO is smokin’ hot. Unlike their batteries, of course I hope. :-)
I enjoy it..............🙄
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