Kodak invests in company developing EV “Super Cell” battery
Eastman Kodak Co. announced it has taken a minority stake in Wildcat Discovery Technologies (Wildcat), a technology company using proprietary high-throughput methods to rapidly develop new battery materials. Wildcat is developing a breakthrough EV “super cell” designed to provide a greater than 90 percent improvement in energy density over today’s best batteries, which could further accelerate the widespread adoption of EVs, the company claimed.
Kodak said the investment will be used to support rapid development of the new technology, with the goal of having the “super cell” ready for commercialization in two years. Kodak has also entered into an agreement to provide coating and engineering services in collaboration with Wildcat to develop and scale film coating technologies which are critical for the safety and reliability of the next generation of EV battery technology. Wildcat has granted Kodak certain rights to negotiate a production or licensing arrangement with Wildcat when and if Wildcat’s technology reaches commercial readiness.
In addition, the company has announced it has repurposed a full‐scale production coating machine to manufacture coated substrates for cathode and anode assembly in the EV/energy storage battery market. Kodak has begun providing coated material to a battery manufacturer and is in the process of ramping production levels, the maximum capacity of which is up to 80 million square meters per year.
“This investment in Wildcat reflects Kodak’s commitment to building new businesses by leveraging our existing skills and infrastructure. Coating substrates is a critical aspect of manufacturing batteries and no one is better at coating than Kodak,” said Jim Continenza, Kodak’s Executive Chairman and CEO. “We are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with an innovator like Wildcat to provide more powerful, safer solutions for applications such as energy storage and EV batteries and participate in this rapidly growing market.”