Carbon battery startup aims to make energy storage circular

Ukrainian startup SorbiForce said they’ve created the world’s first sustainable battery using four key ingredients: carbon, water, salt and agricultural waste.  

“With the current way energy storage systems and batteries are designed, they have really big sustainability implications for the planet,” Kevin Drolet, SorbiForce’s CMO, told pv magazine USA. He explained that material scientist Serhii Kaminskyi, SorbiForce’s CEO and co-founder, had long been bothered by those environmental ramifications.  

Kaminskyi pulled together a team of experts in the late 2010s to work on solving the problem. This ultimately landed them a spot in the University of Arizona Center for Innovation startup incubator following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war through the U.S. Department of State’s Global Innovation through Science and Technology initiative. 

“We’ve really latched onto this idea that waste is value and that you can derive capital enterprise from waste,” added Drolet, noting that SorbiForce has now established a U.S. company in addition to their Ukrainian base.  

The company’s sorption batteries rely on three physical rather than chemical processes to transport electrons from the cathode to the anode via an ultraporous carbon layer in the heart of the cell. Both the cathode and the anode are also carbon-based, meaning that the battery is entirely nonflammable.  

“What’s really interesting about our technology is that the ultraporous carbon materials actually get better as they age,” Drolet said. “The battery life could be up to 30 years as long as you can add more water.”  

At the end of a cell’s life, 95% of a SorbiForce battery can be broken down into organic materials. The other 5% are reusable components.  

Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which frequently end up in toxic waste dumps or can produce hazardous materials when recycled, Drolet said that it’s possible to “cut one of SorbiForce’s cells in half and still keep the lights on” without risking explosion, thermal runaways or leaching toxins thanks to their metal-free chemistry and closed-loop approach.  

It’s still early days, however. The company is preparing to deploy its first 60 kWh to 150 kWh pilot projects in the second half of 2025 and is currently raising seed funding with a goal of $5 million before the round closes.  

Drolet is bullish about scaling up, noting low capex and high demand.  

“Compared to lithium-ion batteries, our capex costs are much lower because the salt and materials for the battery are in massive abundance here in the United States,” he said, noting there’s a much lower cost barrier to entry to setting up production.  

Coupled with a lifespan of over 6,000 cycles and module stackability, Drolet expects the scale-up from the company’s current pilot projects to full manufacturing will be “a question of learning, but the demand is definitely there.”  

“There’s a big need to develop technologies that are non-flammable, nonexplosive and made in the U.S.,” he said. “If you can build something that doesn’t catch on fire, that’s really valuable; we can do that while building a circular economy for energy storage.” 

SorbiForce expects to start deploying its first batteries later this year from initial sales. 

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