Lyten

Trying to dig a little into Lyten as a new Li-S company on the scene piqued my interest. But so far difficult to find much information. Core business seems to be graphene & carbon materials, with ‘the first coin cell’ made relatively recently in 2017…

A quick look at the patents doesn’t show up so much on batteries. One, granted three months ago, seems to detail a Li₂S cathode vs Si anode, with other patents hinting at the same.

Excerpt from Lyten's patent

Some cycling data is given for Li₂S and Si electrodes, which I tried to piece together to estimate (as reasonably as possible what an 18650 of these materials might look like). Though, this seems like not much to write home about…

First cell model of a Li-S 18650 cell

There is also what seems like full-cell cycling data, indicating an initial ~325 Wh/kg, but with cycle life dropping below the usual standard 80% BoL after maybe 15-20 cycles. This is believable for Li-S, if not tremendously exciting…

Energy density vs cycle number from Lyten's patent

Some more recent patents are indicating a more ‘standard’ sulfur cathode + Li anode with ether-based electrolyte, w/ graphene seemingly incorporated into both electrodes. So far I have not tracked down the images so I haven’t seen any data for this yet.

In the end there’s little to go on so far and I’ve not seen much sign of anything which hasn’t already been well-explored by academia (or, indeed, OXIS…). So I’m wary to take claims of e.g. 1000 cycles at face value. Lastly… the world’s first 18650 Li-S cell is a bit odd to me - I would think a low voltage cylindrical cell using electrodes with relatively large volume expansions might not be the most ideal choice, which might be why it’s not been done before. But we shall see I suppose.