Battery Innovators Need Outstanding Performance the Moment They Enter the Market. The Secret Weapon: Advanced Electrolytes.

May 5, 2025 | News

Read how Octet is supporting the energy ecosystem’s next phase.

 

Key points

  • For next-gen battery innovators, market entry moments –  whether that’s project demonstrations or initial installations – can be make-or-break. The pressure is on to elevate a game-changing concept into technology that’s lithium-competitive in field conditions at scale, all on the customer’s timeline and terms.
  • Model rebuilds are simply not workable, cost-effective solutions to making necessary improvements happen on tight schedules.
  • Simple-to-execute, highly impactful electrolyte changes are an elegant answer for battery innovators who need their tech to who need their tech to excel at “go-time.” However…
  • Easier said than done: A number of hurdles keep next-gen battery innovators from developing electrolyte upgrades in-house.
  • Given the vital importance of scaling a new energy ecosystem quickly, the stakes of success could not be higher.
  • At Octet, we’re harnessing our unique strengths – our expertise in aqueous battery electrolytes, our bias toward speed, and our global electrolyte manufacturing network – to serve as the electrolyte partner that battery firms need to win this moment and drive the future of energy storage. 

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In the new battery era, electrolytes are a game-changer. 

 

We’re in a new era of energy storage. 

To meet the new demands of tomorrow’s energy needs, next-gen battery pioneers are parting ways with lithium-ion. To be sure, lithium-ion is and will remain a foundational component of consumer-grade and mobile applications – but these innovators know that it simply doesn’t meet the needs and challenges of stationary and long-duration demands. Instead, these innovators are charting new territory with energy storage based on different ingredients like zinc, iron, lead and vanadium, and nature’s best electrolyte: water.

They’ve uncovered a safer, more sustainable path to powering  our homes and businesses while supporting renewable energy and participating in the grid-scale energy market that’s projected to soon reach $120 billion.

 

The shift puts electrolyte chemistry front and center.

That shift puts a wholly new focus on a long-underappreciated piece of the battery: the electrolyte. While developers have given the lion’s share of their attention to the many other parts of the battery, electrolyte chemistry has been largely overlooked for dozens of years (and arguably for centuries). But the rise of aqueous (water-based) technology for larger and longer-lasting applications changes the electrolyte equation dramatically, for three reasons:

  • In aqueous batteries, electrolytes are a bigger performance factor. In the more ionic environment of water-based batteries, the electrolyte is a far more active participant in the electrochemistry that drives the battery. In aqueous batteries, the electrolyte does more than just transport ions—it directly influences redox efficiency, side reactions and corrosion, pH stability and shifts, precipitation, and often is the source of the active species for energy storage. More things can happen and more molecular players can get involved (for good and bad).
  • New applications put new and greater demands on performance. For decades, water-based batteries were primarily used for non-rechargeable and shorter service life uses. Adapting aqueous batteries to bigger formats (hundreds of kilowatt hours or more!) and longer lifetimes (ten to twenty years and beyond) means that every single percentage of capacity, lifecycle, and efficiency matter.
  • New research arenas means fresh possibilities. Given the sheer dominance of lithium-ion technologies until now, creating new aqueous electrolyte additives has just not been a core focus for both academic and industrial battery research to this point. This creates challenges – but also provides battery innovators with vast new IP and technological opportunities that can set them apart. 

Specifically, aqueous batteries face steep challenges in three core areas: parasitic side reactions, inconsistent metal plating, and limited stability (see chart). Octet’s research and engineering has found that all three challenges are highly sensitive to the electrolyte, and can be solved efficiently through advancements in electrolyte additive chemistry. 

 

Electrolyte advancement provides a fast track to a proven product 

Given the importance of electrolytes to aqueous batteries, it should not come as a surprise that massive performance gains can be achieved by applying targeted molecules to improve the electrolyte. 

These gains can be extremely significant. We know from our own experience: Octet has helped customers achieve a 20% increase in capacity, a 10% boost in efficiency, and a doubling of operating life through targeted electrolyte improvements. 

In short, electrolyte additives present a fast-track to making next-generation batteries truly competitive with lithium – and fully ready for market. 

That “electrolyte advantage” can make an enormous difference at battery innovators’ market entry moments – when their business relies on scaling to top performance, fast. Lithium-ion isn’t pulling any punches and competitors need to be ready to enter the ring and compete right now.

 

For new battery innovators, market entry can be make-or-break – forcing brutal decisions.

In a battery innovator’s journey to success, market entry moments – both project demonstrations and new installations – are particularly critical. After what’s likely a very long sales cycle, battery startups have earned a “try out” towards broader commercialization – and they’re unlikely to get a second chance. 

These companies are competing for business with lithium-ion batteries – a technology that holds major first-mover advantages. Lithium-ion has already earned the trust of utilities, commercial and industrial buyers, and behind-the-meter consumers; benefits from decades’ of scale-up infrastructure; and sees continued innovation even as alternatives work to hit parity. Even if the innovators stand within “striking distance” of lithium-ion value now, their success hinges on forging a fast path to closing the gap. 

Battery innovators must invest all possible resources into delivering outstanding performance on key battery KPIs, quickly. But in battery production, the standard path to getting to the next iteration is a full-scale model rebuild – a process that’s costly, complex, and can take time these innovators don’t have to spare.

For startups, this means spending against their limited runway. For innovation groups within larger organizations, this means chipping away at dedicated budgets that could have gone elsewhere. 

Battery innovators need a cheaper, quicker way to level-up during these critical moments. The future of their business – and the future of the alternative energy storage that’s vital to a sustainable grid – depends on it.

 

Electrolytes can solve the market-entry challenge. But critical hurdles stand in the way.

Given the enormous potential of electrolyte additives, electrolyte upgrades seem like an obvious remedy. But that is easier said than done. Multiple barriers stand in the way of allowing these innovative energy storage companies to tap the true potential of electrolyte upgrades: 

  • Limited in-house bandwidth. Even for well-capitalized and technologically advanced organizations, few battery innovators have large enough in-house teams to give electrolytes the level of sole attention it takes to develop specialized electrolyte materials.
  • Limited molecules on the market. Finding the right molecular answer to a particular battery’s challenges requires testing dozens to hundreds of molecules and combinations. But even the most specialized chemistry supply companies can offer a few dozen electrolyte molecules at most. 
  • Few precedents in the research: Given just how new the “new guard” of aqueous battery technologies is, it may not be surprising that relevant publicly available electrolyte research is sparse. Most scientific literature on electrolytes focuses on niche systems and legacy chemicals. The research may offer clues of how to retrofit old chemistries, but provides little guidance in how to develop new electrolytes for the pathbreaking batteries innovators are creating today. 
  • Manufacturing hurdles. Even if innovators do manage to develop the right electrolyte immediately in the lab, that doesn’t mean they’re able to take on the additional huge challenge of manufacturing a wholly new formula at scale amidst their already-complicated path to commercialization. 

As a result of these issues, battery innovators looking to reach the next stage in key metrics such as Energy density, Battery Lifetime, Efficiency, Duration of Discharge, etc. often see battery rebuilds with updates to their hard materials and design—taking enormous time, cost, and other resources – as the only option available.

 

Octet’s Mission: Be the level-up solution battery innovators need

Here at Octet, we uniquely understand these challenges and opportunities – and know we have a critical role to offer  in helping alternative battery firms be ready to win as soon as they enter the market.

That perspective is rooted in three core strengths: our expertise as aqueous batteries “natives”, the fast pace of  innovation in our DNA, and our international electrolyte manufacturing capabilities – all of which I’ll outline below.

Native Expertise

At Octet, we’re battery experts who’ve been squarely focused on aqueous electrolytes since our founding seven years ago. Beginning with zinc-based batteries, we’ve expanded our approaches in collaboration with partners across an array of alternative anodes and chemistries – allowing us to provide chemical solutions that are incredibly versatile, effective, and straightforward to deploy:

  • Hundreds of chemicals, tuned to your specific application. Our electrolyte and additive formulations start with an unparalleled electrolyte chemical catalog of nearly 400 molecules – all based on abundant, readily-available sources – which we precisely tune to clients’ system and business needs.
  • Proven effectiveness. As mentioned above, our solutions have helped customers achieve improvements such as a 20% increase in capacity, a 10% boost in efficiency, and a doubling of operating life. 
  • Simple integration. Our proprietary additives can be simply integrated into your existing electrolyte chemistry – providing outsize impact with zero battery redesign. Typically our formulas only take a miniscule amount of product: required concentrations are often less than 1%, and can be as low as tens-of-parts-per-million.

Fast Innovation

As a startup, we’re culturally and economically aligned with alternative battery firms to work creatively and deliver quickly. 

  • We’re agile by nature. Our team of scientists comes from startup and industry – giving us an inherent understanding of our clients’ accelerated timelines and financial constraints.
  • We’re built for high-throughput. Our testing and integration process is designed to iterate on our molecules with real in-lab testing and unmatched speed. We are equipped and experienced to explore dozens-to-a-hundred of our additives in your electrolyte in only a few months.
  • We’re incentivized to move fast. We’ve built our business model around serving as an electrolyte manufacturing partner to our clients. Our goal is to do whatever we can to help our customers win their demos and installs  quickly, in order to move on to scaling and production sooner.

International manufacturing

Our in-market production capabilities via strategic partnerships with manufacturers in the US, EU, and India eliminate supply chain uncertainties – ensuring consistent quality, reliable delivery, and a streamlined path from development to commercialization.

With these advantages in mind, we’re setting our sights on a new path ahead for Octet. We’re putting our strengths to work to support the next generation of energy storage with the advanced electrolyte solutions that these innovators need, focused on two core areas:

  • Serving as the outsourced electrolyte development team for the aqueous battery industry – recommending the exact additive formula each client needs to efficiently hit their market entry KPIs. 
  • Activating our international manufacturing network to deliver that right electrolyte to each client, at scale, and in time for deployment.

While the electrolyte is vital to the future of batteries, we also recognize that battery teams’ focus lies in building the overall technology–not on one component alone. We’re offering our support so battery innovators can focus on the core battery, knowing that we’re supporting them on electrolyte advancement 100% of the way.

To be clear, this is an approach that we’re announcing now – but that we’ve been deeply immersed in with clients across a variety of aqueous technologies for many months. We’re thrilled by the results so far, and we can’t wait to deliver similar impact to many more energy storage game-changers.