High Throughput
Platform (HTP)
Accelerating Battery Development
Wildcat
High Throughput Platform
Wildcat uses proprietary high throughput technology to accelerate battery materials R&D. This massively parallel technique enables our scientists to investigate hundreds of materials in the time standard laboratories look at only a handful.
Faster
than conventional
research
than conventional
research
High Throughput Platform History
Wildcat has pioneered a turnkey parallel discovery platform for battery technology development.
Wildcat has pioneered a turnkey parallel discovery platform for battery technology development
Drug Discovery – Early 1980’s
- Pioneered by Professor Peter G. Schultz, Wildcat’s founder, high throughput research has spread widely throughout the life sciences industry since its introduction in the early 1980’s
- The speed and efficiency of parallel research is well proven in life sciences, and is used extensively throughout the industry
- Most pharma and biotech discovery today involve high throughput methodologies
Polymers & Catalysis – 1990’s
- Professor Schultz founded Symyx Technologies in 1994, which introduced high throughput approaches to big chemical
- Early adopters were giants like Exxon, Dow, BASF, Hoechst Celanese, and many others
- Today, the industry uses parallel, high throughput research as the backbone to accelerate R&D and reduce costs
Wildcat has pioneered a turnkey parallel discovery platform for battery technology development
Wildcat has pioneered a turnkey parallel discovery platform for battery technology development
Battery R&D – 2007 to Present
- Wildcat Discovery Technologies was founded by Professor Schultz to bring high throughput R&D to the field of energy storage
- Wildcat has developed a parallel, high throughput research platform specifically for battery material research, a first for this industry
- Since 2009, Wildcat has successfully completed over 300,000 experiments across more than 215 projects
WILDCAT TECHNOLOGIES
Wildcat’s Unique Approach
Up to 10X faster than conventional research
Electrochemical testing in half or full cells
- Rapid electrolyte optimization
- Discovery of new materials
- Electrode formulation optimization
- Active material improvement including new compositions, dopants, and coatings
- Investigation of processing variables for scale-up of technologies
The HTP Advantages
Wildcat helps our customers achieve industry-leading battery performance, by leveraging our
- SPEED: Using our high throughput combinatorial chemistry for accelerated experimentation
- EXPERIENCE: Including a decade of materials
research and conclusions from 200+ collaboration
projects and 300,000+ experiments
- EXPERTISE: Led by our world-class scientists, we have developed battery cell roadmaps, leveraging our …
- PEOPLE: 90+ world-class team members
- PROCESS: Refined HTP process
- IP: >170 patents granted/pending; 35 related to a future EV “SuperCell”
High Throughput (HTP)
Traditional Research Vs High Throughput (HTP)
Wildcat uses combinatorial chemistry to accelerate battery material discoveries
HTP Advantages
Wildcat has pioneered a turnkey parallel discovery platform for battery technology development.
Wildcat HTP Combines Deep Expertise with Custom Hardware and Software
Explore the Key Steps of the HTP Process
Explore the Key Steps of the HTP Process
- The first step in Wildcat’s process is to develop a sound research strategy
- Together with partners, the Company draws on experience and literature to develop hypotheses, and then carefully designs libraries of experiments to test those hypotheses
- Once the first round of tests has been defined, the information is entered into Wildcat’s workflow request system and the High Throughput workflow is set into motion
- For projects involving inorganic materials, Wildcat has a wide variety of high throughput synthesis capabilities including milling, solution, and heat treatment methods
- Unlike thin film deposition methods, Wildcat’s tools enable scientists to synthesize hundreds of samples in bulk quantities from 10mg to 2g
- This process can also scale up any interesting “hits” to total up kilogram batches
- Wildcat’s automated solution handling and formulation equipment is then used to combine the active materials with binders, conductive additives, and other ingredients to prepare electrode slurries
- The slurries are cast, dried, and calendered into films for use in Wildcat’s batteries
- Alternatively, electrode films received directly from customers can also be incorporated directly into cells
- The fourth step in the parallel process involves the preparation of the electrolyte
- Unique combinations of solvents, salts, and additives are blended to create new formulations for evaluation
- Electrolyte screening is one of the most popular project types and is ideally suited to combinatorial screening of hundreds, or even thousands, of new electrolyte formulations
- Once all the components of the battery are ready, the cells are assembled for testing
- Cells are tunable to match with larger form factors
- Although the design of Wildcat’s cells is proprietary, the cells contain standard components such as a cathode, separator, electrolyte, anode, and current collectors
- Electrochemical test channels are designed and built by Wildcat’s engineering team
- Wildcat has thousands of channels with accuracy and precision exceeding most commercially available alternatives
- Cells can be cycled at various temperatures, and gas evolution can be measured in-situ
- Almost any DC electrochemical test is possible including capacity, cycle life, pulse power, rate capability, impedance, and various others
- Wildcat has developed proprietary software and analytical tools that enable scientists to quickly mine meaningful insight from huge volumes of data, visualize the key trends, and validate hypotheses
- Data, observations, conclusions, and recommendations are shared with customers
- Wildcat uses high throughput research to significantly accelerate improvements in batteries, enabling new discoveries to be made faster than conventional methods
- Our Informatics Database records and analyzes standardized data generated throughout the research process
- This data is automatically compiled using our proprietary software and leveraged to inform experimentation and modeling assumptions
- The quality and quantity of our data has enabled us to improve our predictive models, which is a critical step in the future development of Artificial Intelligence
Custom Built
In-House
The Key Ingredient: Custom Equipment
Technology Only Available at Wildcat
- High energy parallel mills for high throughput solid state synthesis of bulk materials
- Special furnace capabilities for calcination over wide temperature ranges with a variety of gas options
- Custom slurry mixing and parallel film coating capabilities to produce numerous high quality electrode films simultaneously
- Automated calendering and film punching devices
- Wildcat’s HTP battery cells are custom designed and enable parallel assembly, in-situ gas generation measurements, and provide very high precision data