The life force of a battery is its electrolyte. Just as the bloodstream moves essential oxygen throughout a human body, the electrolyte transports ions inside the battery. This movement is the battery’s source of power — no blood flow, no life; no electrolyte, no energy.
Because the electrolyte is so essential to a battery’s function, it can also be a bottleneck in its performance. Understanding the role of electrolytes reveals why they’re key to unlocking a better battery.
The electrolyte sits between the anode and cathode of a battery cell, creating a pathway for ions to move between the two. When ions go from the positive side — the cathode — to the negative side — the anode — the battery charges, stores up energy. This is what happens when you plug a battery into a charger. When ions move from negative to positive, the battery discharges and creates power to fuel your electric vehicle, run your cell phone, power your computer or support an entire electric grid.
How easily ions can move back and forth is known as ionic conductivity. The higher the ionic conductivity, the faster the battery charges. The opposite is also true — with low ionic conductivity, the cell charges slower making it harder for the battery to deliver power.
Battery charge is a little more complicated than just ionic conductivity. While multiple types of ions move throughout the battery, lithium ions are the most important because they carry the charge that actually powers the battery. The lithium transference number is like asking, of all the ions, how many are lithium? The higher the number, the higher the percentage of lithium, meaning a more efficient, more stable, and safer battery that charges — and discharges — faster.
The same challenges with conventional electrolyte design have stood in the way of clean energy progress for decades. Their low ionic conductivity is one of the main sources of issues like:
Slow charge rates: While it takes just minutes to fill a car’s gas tank, it can take half an hour or more to charge an electric car. This is still a major barrier to adoption for many drivers, who don’t want to wait to hit the next stop on their road trip. Traditional electrolytes limit how fast ions can move, slowing down charge speeds significantly.
Poor performance in cold weather: Have you heard horror stories of EVs losing power in frigid weather and leaving drivers stranded? Cold temperatures can cause electrolytes to thicken or “freeze” and slow ion movement down even further, sometimes bringing it to a halt. As a result, capacity and performance drop significantly.
Sacrificing energy for power: Today’s technologies require massive amounts of power — phones and laptops need increasing energy to run AI and other intensive applications, while electric vehicles demand faster acceleration and rapid charging. But when ions move slowly, batteries struggle to deliver high power without compromising on energy density. As a result, you get bulkier designs, longer charge times and reduced efficiency.
As the lifeblood of a battery, improving the electrolyte also means improving the battery and knocking down these barriers. High ionic conductivity and lithium transference can enable faster charging, better cold-weather performance and higher power output without sacrificing energy density.
24M has developed a novel approach that fundamentally changes how lithium ions move within the battery, representing a significant advancement in electrolyte technology.
What makes 24M’s Eternalyte really stand out is the combination of its high ionic conductivity and high lithium transference number. This unconventional approach to the Eternalyte electrolyte means ions move three to five times faster than any standard electrolyte on the market. This level of ionic conductivity creates EVs that can add up to 200 miles of range in under four minutes.
Where cells with conventional electrolytes can lose a quarter of their capacity at 0°C, Eternalyte retains essentially all capacity at freezing temperatures. And, it still maintains more than 80% capacity at -40°C, compared to conventional cells which would be down to 20% or below.
Unlike most high-performance systems, Eternalyte delivers this speed and cold-weather performance without sacrificing energy density, meaning your battery will go further, last longer and charge faster no matter the conditions. Its chemistry-agnostic design powers everything from silicon and graphite cells to next-gen lithium-metal batteries capable of 1,000-mile range.
Imagine an EV that can drive from New York City to Orlando without ever stopping to recharge, or someone plugging in their car as they run into the convenience store and coming out to a full charge. Picture someone opening their laptop at 9 a.m. and powering through a full day of video calls, AI-driven work and streaming. Think about a solar-powered grid storing energy during the day and instantly releasing it in the evening to meet peak demand, without delay, lag or power loss. A better electrolyte like Eternalyte can make this possible.