{"id":33148,"date":"2016-03-16T14:47:05","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T19:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=33148"},"modified":"2016-03-16T16:34:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T21:34:49","slug":"chicago-company-makes-batteries-cool-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-company-makes-batteries-cool-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago company makes batteries cool again"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kaitlin Schuler<\/strong><\/p>\n

A battery production line and warehouse\u00a0lives in a small building on Chicago\u2019s Southwest Side. It features a main production floor with individual work stations dedicated to creating each product, with storage for shipments and a laboratory where new design ideas and compositions are tested and created. Workers in each area are focused intently on their part of the process, looking up only briefly to see the stranger in their workspace.<\/p>\n

This is where AllCell Technologies LLC<\/a> produces, packages and ships its\u00a0novel battery cell cooling products.<\/p>\n

AllCell received early funding from Skokie-based Heartland Angels Inc. and Townsend Capital LLC, an energy-focused company, but now makes steady profits from\u00a0its customer base. Revenues have quintupled from $900,000 in 2012 to $4.7 million in 2014. AllCell\u2019s numbers for 2015 have not yet been finalized, but Sales Director Scott \u00a0Novack predicted continued increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re growing our revenue, our orders and our customer base each year,\u201d Novack said, \u201cas more and more customers are expecting quality lithium battery packs and are willing to pay a premium to get the battery life and safety we focus on.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

When the U.S. military approached the Illinois Institute of Technology for help designing batteries to withstand extreme temperatures, professors Said Al-Hallaj and J. Robert Selman took the lead and sparked the beginning of AllCell in 2001. Now, the company boasts 45 employees compared with the original six.<\/p>\n

\"warehouse\"
AllCell employees work to construct battery packs out of the\u00a0Phase Change Composite \u00a0specifically designed by the company. (Kaitlin Schuler\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere were cooling vests that soldiers were wearing out in the desert,\u201d Novack said, \u201cbut the lithium batteries were getting too hot, resulting in safety and range issues because of the heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The professors and a small team of graduate students worked with the Department of Defense\u2019s Future Force Warrior Program<\/a> to design \u201csmall, lightweight batteries that could withstand high discharge rates in extremely hot weather,\u201d according to AllCell\u2019s website. Al-Hallaj\u2019s Ph.D. research in lithium-ion batteries helped design AllCell\u2019s technology and move the company forward.<\/p>\n

In order to deal with problem of these cooling vests overheating, and subsequently killing the batteries, the AllCell team came up with its \u201csecret sauce:\u201d a mix of wax and graphite that surrounds each individual battery, capping its peak temperature and dispersing excess heat throughout the mixture. AllCell calls it the Phase Change Composite.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cycle life [of the battery] tends to be 50-70 percent higher because we\u2019re regulating a lower temperature,\u201d Novack said. \u201cWe strongly believe in thermal management, and that\u2019s what our product achieves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PCC\"
AllCell’s team came up with the company’s Phase Change Composite or\u00a0“secret sauce,” a mixture of wax and graphite\u00a0that surrounds each individual battery to keep the entire battery pack cool enough to last and function as intended. (Kaitlin Schuler\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AllCell also produces custom products for certain companies that need a very specific battery pack that they cannot get from a bigger company. Matra<\/a>, a French company that dealt with cars, bicycles and aeronautics, and is now a subsidiary of Lagard\u00e8re Group, worked with AllCell to design a lightweight, removable battery pack that would fit Matra\u2019s specific electric scooter design.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince you have to get certification for every new design, some of our competitors don\u2019t have time or flexibility to do custom orders,\u201d Novack explained. Each battery pack must receive shipping certification from the United Nations and International Air Transport Association<\/a>, along with other certifications depending on the design of the battery pack and the product for which it is made.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military has been AllCell\u2019s customer since 2008, when Al-Hallaj stepped down from his chemical engineering professorship at IIT to become AllCell\u2019s full-time CEO and chairman. Novack said they also have robotics, drones, electric bike and energy storage customers. Other customers include companies like Chicago Electric Bicycles.com, GenZe by Mahindra and Riide<\/a>\u00a0Inc.<\/p>\n

\"finished
The Chicago company has a number of customers, both for its own battery pack designs and for custom designs. (Kaitlin Schuler\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of its most recent projects includes deploying as many as\u00a03,000 solar-powered electric charging stations in Jordan over the next decade. Upon completion, each station will be able to charge 10,000 vehicles a day.<\/p>\n

Al-Hallaj, a dual citizen of Jordan and the United States, entered into an agreement with Jordan\u2019s capital city Amman. In 2015, the Kingdom of Jordan\u2019s Council of Ministers exempted hybrid and electric car batteries from sales tax in an effort to\u00a0encourage combating climate change. An earlier decision from the Council also exempted electric vehicles from customs duties and sales tax.<\/p>\n

One of AllCell\u2019s customers, Chicago Electric Bicycles<\/a>, stressed the importance of its battery supplier\u2019s focus on quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllCell lithium battery packs have the advantage of significantly higher quality,\u201d according to the Chicago Electric Bicycles website. \u201cThe battery packs are handmade and tested for quality by American engineers at AllCell…and are half the weight of heavier LiFePO4 battery packs coming from Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacques Bonneville, Matra\u2019s president and CEO at the time of its partnership with AllCell, had similar praise for the Chicago company.<\/p>\n

\u201cA key ingredient to our success is our ability to find cutting-edge partners who\u00a0bring both high-performance technology and exceptional engineering capabilities to the table,\u201d Bonneville said in an online note. \u201cAllCell is the perfect example of the type of business partner we need, and our work with them over the past several years has provided tremendous value to Matra, our products, and our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pack\"
Completed battery packs, both custom and bulk orders, sit on a shelf awaiting shipment. Part of AllCell’s strength comes from its ability as a small company to devote focus to custom designs for its customers. (Kaitlin Schuler\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AllCell\u2019s current focus is on its newest line of product, yet to be named, being released in March. This line improves upon the \u201cNaked\u201d<\/a> product, which is a standard battery line that the company produces. The new product adds a custom container to hold the battery pack, for those customers who don\u2019t have a container already in their product for the \u201cNaked\u201d pack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you don\u2019t carefully select a battery supplier, you get the Hoverboards situation,\u201d Novack explained. \u201cPicture a battery pack that weighs\u00a0five pounds.\u00a0There will be 40-50 individual cells and you want them to behave in the same way. The graphite, as a conductive material, does that and prevents overheating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward, AllCell will add to its standard offerings with \u201ca product that is a drop-in replacement for lead-acid and AGM batteries.\u201d These would go in forklifts or golf carts, for example, which currently use lead acid batteries. According to Novack, lead- acid is inefficient, heavy and hard to maneuver.<\/p>\n

\u201cLithium has a more expensive upfront cost,\u201d he explained, \u201cbut the life of the product makes sense in terms of return on investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Part of the battery pack creation process involves placing the lithium-ion batteries into the molded Phase Change Composite. Each portion of AllCell’s warehouse plays a different role in the assembly process. (Kaitlin Schuler\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kaitlin Schuler A battery production line and warehouse\u00a0lives in a small building on Chicago\u2019s Southwest Side. It features a main production floor with individual work stations dedicated to creating each product, with storage for shipments and a laboratory where new design ideas and compositions are tested and created. Workers in each area are focused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255,"featured_media":33191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,585],"tags":[2340,2341,61,593,851,2342],"class_list":["post-33148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-winter-2016","tag-allcell","tag-battery","tag-chicago","tag-iit","tag-small-business","tag-southwest-side"],"yoast_head":"\nChicago company makes batteries cool again - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-company-makes-batteries-cool-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago company makes batteries cool again - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Kaitlin Schuler A battery production line and warehouse\u00a0lives in a small building on Chicago\u2019s Southwest Side. 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