Firefly Energy Receives Frost & Sullivan 2006 Technology Innovation Award
Posted on May 12th, 2006
Firefly Energy, Inc., the Peoria-based spin out of Caterpillar now developing a next generation lead acid battery technology, has announced it has received Frost & Sullivan’s 2006 Technology Innovation Award for its graphite foam lead acid battery which it believes has the potential to revolutionize today’s $16 billion worldwide lead acid battery market.
Officials at Firefly Energy believe the battery and a patent awarded last December could cause disruptive changes in the battery market. The company is already developing its battery technology for first customer Electrolux, and is also beginning work with the U.S. Army. The Firefly battery technology could also serve emerging applications such as hybrid electric vehicles which historically haven’t been served effectively by traditional lead acid batteries due to heavy weight and poor cycle life.
“It’s a special honor to receive this prestigious technology innovation award, which clearly recognizes our rapid, significant advancements in the material sciences and what we expect will be the next generation lead acid battery,” says Edward F. Williams, CEO and a co-founder of Firefly Energy.
Earlier this year, the company announced that it had been awarded a U.S. patent for its battery (U.S. Patent 6,979,513), comprised of an electrical current collector constructed of carbon or lightweight graphite foam. This foam exhibits a sizeable increase in surface area for chemical reactions to take place and enables the removal of heavy lead plates found in traditional batteries. The graphite material resists corrosion and sulfation build-up, thus contributing to longer battery life while being lighter in weight than today’s lead acid batteries.
Kurt Kelley, the inventor of Firefly’s graphite foam battery technology, adds that removal of corrosive heavy lead grids and replacing them with graphite foam helps unleash the innate power of lead acid chemistry.
“We have introduced a material that doesn’t corrode and enables the weights and sizes of lead acid batteries to be reduced significantly. While somewhat newer battery technologies like Lithium and Nickel Metal Hydride offer alternatives to traditional lead acid cells, they have their own set of issues including higher costs.”
He believes Firefly Energy’s battery can rival other advanced chemistries in performance, take advantage of an existing manufacturing base and address environmental concerns through the removal of up to two-thirds of the lead content.
Frost & Sullivan, a major technology consulting firm, says its award is presented annually to a company carrying out new research which has resulted in innovations that have or are expected to bring significant contributions to the industry. It recognizes the quality and depth of a company’s research and development program as well as the vision and risk-taking that enabled it to undertake such an endeavor.
Firefly Energy is gaining recognition worldwide in 2006. The Frost & Sullivan award follows the recent announcement by Red Herring magazine that Firefly Energy was named one of the top 200 private technology companies in North American for 2006. More than 1,000 privately held companies submitted entries and were judged on such factors as financial performance, innovations, quality of management and their ability to execute their strategies.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development of innovative strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services, and corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities. Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community by providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets, technologies, econometrics, and demographics. For more information, visit http://www.awards.frost.com or http://www.batteries.frost.com.
