Medgar Evers Project Wins $200K Grant From The U.S. Navy

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A project at Medgar Evers College has won $200,000 in funding from the U.S. Navy, the school recently announced.

The grant, sent through the United States Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command, will go to Medgar Evers and Natrion, a research and development start-up that has partnered with the school on the technology project.

It will help the team continue exploring the use of lithium metal in batteries, which they say can improve how long electric vehicles can operate on a single charge, and speed up how quickly the batteries can recharge.

“Our research group at Medgar Evers College has been working with Natrion for well over a year now on the development of solid-state sodium-ion batteries, and there will be a lot that we’ll be able to transfer to these ongoing efforts from what we learn with this new lithium-ion battery project for the Navy,” said Dr. Michele Vittadello, a Medgar Evers professor leading the team collaborating with Natrion.

Natrion, which is based in Binghamton, has been looking into making lithium metal work for a "long time," according to the company. They added that the battery innovation can help with all forms of electric mobility.

“We want to leverage it to vastly improve how quickly an electric vehicle battery can be charged and how long an electric vehicle can operate on a single charge," said Dr. Duke Shih, chief technology officer of Natrion. "This [Small Business Technology Transfer Research grant] is a great opportunity for us to resolve one of the final obstacles that remain in the path of Li-metal anode battery commercialization for all forms of electric mobility applications."

The project is expected to take six months.

Read more about the grant and the project here.