Seven firms — Advanced Battery Concepts, Aqua Metals, Daramic, Gridtential, Hammond, Northstar Battery and Remy Battery — had submitted entries for Battery Council International’s innovation award when the submission deadline closed in mid-February. The organizers say late entries may still be considered, however.

“It looks like some of the cream of our industry have made their submissions,” says Mark Thorsby, executive vice president of BCI. “Again I expect the standards to be extremely high — as least as high as they were last year.”

The award — named the Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz Innovation Award after the chief executive of East Penn who died in a road accident three years ago — was launched in 2016.

It proved to be highly popular with delegates and one of the talking points of the BCI’s annual conference and power mart that was held in San Antonio that May.

“It’s a celebration of the vitality of the battery industry,” says Thorsby. “Lead batteries aren’t going to go away any time soon and the industry has squared up to the challenge that lithium batteries now present with ground-breaking research and excellent products.”

The outright winner last year was
Hammond Group for its K2 pasting product. Runners up were Advanced Battery Concepts with its bipolar battery and Black Diamond Structures for its use of nano-technology in boosting charge acceptance and cycle life.

Separately, February 18 was National Battery Day and BCI has released a video featuring the recycling of a lead battery’s primary components: lead, plastic and acid.

The new BCI video details the process a used battery undergoes once it is returned to the retailer.

“The lead, plastic and acid are isolated from one another at an EPA regulated facility, and through a multi-step recycling process, these components become new lead batteries. This unique process allows consumers to purchase a product that is both economically and environmentally favorable,” says Thorsby.

While lead batteries are over 150 years old, their ability to be efficiently recycled into the same, useful product has cemented their place in the energy storage world.

The next BCI annual convention will be held in Jacksonville, Florida at the end of April.

To view the lead battery recycling video, visit www.batterycouncil.org/recycling.