(A U.S. Army unmanned, eight-wheeled, all-electric, all-terrain transport vehicle equipped with an enhanced surveillance package. U.S. Army photo.)
By Troy Turner
AUBURN – The U.S. Navy is looking for ways to arm its warships at sea with weapons that don’t run out of ammunition. The Marine Corps and Army are developing ground warfare models that can combat drones.
Directed energy with lasers and microwave technology is leading the way in determining future strategy, but with this technological advancement is one central requirement for it to work: electricity.
And it’s not just weapons that are being studied. The military also is exploring the use of electric vehicles on the battlefront. They can produce fewer detectable emissions and operate much quieter than conventional vehicles, and they don’t require reliable access to gas or diesel fuels.
All of this makes the dependence on supplies such as durable, long-lasting and more powerful batteries a critical item in the U.S. military’s supply chain requirements.
The Alabama connection
Two central Alabama companies and Auburn University-backed research are being tapped by the Department of Defense to help.
IntraMicron Inc., Auburn, is an innovation company created in close partnership with Auburn University. It recently was awarded a $7.6 million contract by the Department of Defense “for the procurement of high-power battery modules in support of the Office of Naval Research.”
Meanwhile in nearby Coosa County, the BamaStar Graphite Project has received $3.2 million for a feasibility study on creating a fully domestic graphite production pipeline for battery materials.
Both projects are significant not so much for the contracts they hold now, but for where the work on them could go next.
IntraMicron-Auburn: A special partnership
IntraMicron has more than just its roots tied to research programs at Auburn University’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. It exists with personnel and development linked in a close working partnership, such as company leadership also serving in leadership roles with the university.
Bruce Tatarchuk, IntraMicron co-founder and CEO, also serves as director of Auburn’s Center for Microfibrous Materials Manufacturing and as the Charles Gavin III Endowed Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering.
“We have one of the world’s largest lithium-ion batteries that can discharge safely at higher, or faster, power levels than any other lithium-ion battery system available,” Tatarchuk said in a recent university-released article.
IntraMicron and Auburn a year ago showcased a means to safely meet the extreme demands of pulse-power electrical systems tailored for next-generation defense missions. The DOD noticed, as the work helped lead to the contract awarded the company in late September.
“You’ll see Auburn co-op students and graduate students working side-by-side at IntraMicron, and then you’ll see staff engineers who are former co-op students,” Tatarchuk said. “The military is concerned about workforce development and the strategic supply and access to people versed in technology. The fact that we can align the student educational experience with the critical workforce needs of the future is a big deal.
“Here, we’ve got a university and a small spinoff business working together. We’re not just talking about it. We’re really doing it,” he said. “We are demonstrating that it’s not just technology and the group of people collaborating. It’s the overarching platform and the model we’re addressing.
“Who will this impact? Research targets that have societal benefit… this one being national defense.”
IntraMicron, founded in 2001 to commercialize microfibrous materials technology developed at Auburn, also has developed conductive additives used by the airline industry to eliminate static charging, state-of-the-art gas masks worn by NATO and U.S. soldiers, catalyst systems producing renewable fuels from wastes, metallic filters for chemical and pharma production, “and the most powerful and safest lithium batteries on the planet.”
The BamaStar Project
Meanwhile, a little more than 50 miles west of Auburn in the rural hills of Coosa County is the BamaStar Project, positioned on the northeast end of the Alabama Graphite Belt.
Graphite material is widely used in producing batteries due to its abundance, low cost, good electrical conductivity, and ability to sustain a long cycle life regarding how many times a battery can be charged.
The BamaStar project covers approximately 500 acres, including a historic mine that was active during World Wars I and II.
Parent company South Star Battery Metals Corp. hopes the project develops into a reliable supply for a battery-grade processing facility it would locate somewhere in the southeastern United States, providing materials for the development of lithium-ion batteries.
The United States for decades has remained almost entirely dependent on foreign sources for graphite, “a key component in the batteries that power electric vehicles, military energy systems, and other technologies central to modern life,” a Department of Defense report stated. “China, which produces 77 percent of the world’s graphite and refines more than 90 percent, dominates the market. As geopolitical tensions rise, this reliance has become a glaring weakness.”
The 2022 Defense Department report titled “Securing Defense-Critical Supply Chains” underscores the gravity of the issue, stating:
“To defend the nation and deter America’s adversaries, the Defense Department works to ensure that our armed forces have reliable access to every advantage. Meeting that mission requires a healthy DIB (defense industrial base) built on resilient, diverse and secure supply chains.”
Previous government interest
IntraMicron’s contract with the DOD announced Sept. 27 is not its first with the U.S. government, as the company has received several over the years, such as an almost $5 million provision inked in 2019 for engineering and technical services for the “prototype of a battery system to meet the U.S. Navy’s pulse power needs.”
The most recent award was tallied at $7,620,000 and calls for the work to be performed in Auburn with an expected completion date of September 2027.
The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division, Corona, California, is the contracting agency.
IntraMicron also has received more than $1 million in research grants from the National Science Foundation to support its work.
Developing lasers and microwave uses
Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, commanding general of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, which is headquartered in Huntsville, talked with AlaDefense.com in August and acknowledged that electrical power supply in battlefield conditions is a factor that military and defense industry researchers must conquer.
“As we look to deploy these systems in the future, and how we deploy them, right now, they’re pretty static,” he said regarding electrical power supply during early development stages for new innovations, especially those using directed energy such as lasers and microwave. “But if you want to be more mobile in the future, that’s something we’ll learn about and factor in: How from a power source perspective… how do you have a smaller factor for power on a vehicle or with the operator at the location?”
Also notable, he pointed out, is that as the need grows for directed energy weapons to become more powerful, the warfighter in the field will need “higher wattage systems to advance even larger, further threats.”
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Troy Turner is the editor and senior consultant for AlaDefense.com. He can be contacted at [email protected]. His bio can be found here.
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