Battery start-up raising USD 1.5m on investment platform

Seatrec, a US company that offers technology for electricity production from temperature differences, is in the process of raising growth capital on Propel(x), the latter said on Monday.

According to the announcement, the start-up's target is to gather USD 1 million (EUR 919,000) on the online angel investment platform. Propel(x)’s website, however, shows that it has already reached a bit above USD 1 million and is now seeking USD 1.5 million.

A spinoff from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the California Institute of Technology, Seatrec has created a Thermal RECharging (TREC) Battery that harvests energy from temperature differences. Initially, its focus is on ocean applications and the first generation battery is being integrated with an autonomous profiling float for oceanographic research, climate monitoring and earthquake monitoring.

"Our renewable energy solution has unlimited capacity, no battery-related wastage at sea, and less deployment and operational costs than traditional batteries," says Seatrec chief executive and founder Yi Chao.

In future, the technology could be used to harvest substantial temperature changes between day and night on land and provide energy for sensors and electronic devices in remote locations. It could also be used to harvest air-sea temperature differences in the Arctic.

Seatrec's battery contains materials that expand a lot during a solid-to-liquid phase change, creating high pressure that drives an electric generator. The resulting power is stored in batteries or supercapacitors.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.919)

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