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A Hot Topic: Why The AI Datacenter Boom Depends On Improved Chip Cooling

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:23:50 GMT

Lack of effective cooling is emerging as a key limiting factor for datacenters and the AI GPUs that run them. High powered GPUs generate a lot of heat, and getting rid of that heat is a major problem. Not only is cooling expensive – some 40% of the energy used in a data centre is for cooling – but ineffective cooling limits the power that chips can run at and reduces their lifetime significantly; not great when they are so expensive! This article explores possible solutions to this problem, and how M-Spin’s materials innovations can help.

What limits what a datacenter can do?

The obvious answer to this question is the raw power of the processing units (typically GPUs); in this case, however, the obvious answer is not the full story. In actuality, high-end processors have now become so powerful they are limited by not only how fast they can run but how hot they get while running. If running at 100%, high-end chips can easily exceed 150 °C, with severe consequences for their lifespan. In practice, output is throttled so that temperatures rise don’t rise above about 100 °C. Such protective measures can only do so much though, and consequently chip lifetimes in datacenters are very short (typically between 1 to 3 years). There’s a reason why high-performance gaming laptops recommend you buy a cooling pads to go with them – they enable the processor to run harder for longer.

The Burning Issue of Thermal Management

Why is temperature such a killer for electronics?

Electronics consume more power when they’re hot, and their components burn out faster: in one study, a temperature rise of 30 °C increased power consumption by 14% and halved the operating lifetime from 10 to 5 years [1].

Counterintuitively, poor thermal management increases the energy needed to keep electronics cool, as heat is inefficiently removed from hotspots. Older, inefficient datacenters use up to 40% of their energy on cooling whereas newer centers can lower this below 20%. [2,3] Datacenters are expected to drive vast increases in energy consumption worldwide, as AI usage grows across society and industry – therefore, cooling improvements will lower strain on electricity grids and reduce carbon emissions.

Datacenters also consume a lot of water, which is increasingly critical in an “era of global water bankruptcy” (UN). A small 1 MW datacenter can use 26 million litres of water a year for cooling alone, without even considering the water consumed by energy generation (Fossil and nuclear energy require cooling water too!) [4]. Improving datacenter cooling and transitioning to renewable energy sources would be a win-win for water consumption in a water-stressed world.

Keeping It Cool with Heat Sinks

So, how can we keep the chips cool? Traditionally the answer has been heat sinks - large slabs of metal contacting the chip. The slab absorbs the heat and transfers it to fins that allow air flow to take the heat away. However, modern GPUs generate so much heat that even a very thick slab of metal contacting the chip cannot absorb and transfer heat fast enough to prevent extreme temperature rises.

Other approaches include using liquids flowing through microchannels or even fully immersing the systems in a cooling fluid. While such approaches can be effective they are expensive, and managing the circulation of large amounts of fluids and preventing leaks can be a challenge. There is clearly a need for a cost-effective solution for cooling, and for this, vapour chambers may tick all the boxes.

Two-Phase solutions – Vapour chambers

Vapour chambers (VCs) are a more recent invention that help spread heat over a wide area so it can be more effectively removed by a heat sink. VCs contain a liquid sealed within a vacuum chamber, and the liquid evaporates in contact with a heat source and spreads along the chamber, where it condenses and transfers heat. VCs are ubiquitous in high-end GPUs to improve heat spread and removal – and yet they can be improved further by looking at one crucial component – the wick.

The bottleneck of vapour chambers is the wick - it returns the condensed vapour back to the hotspot, where it can re-evaporate and continue the cooling cycle. The wick is a typically a porous metal that facilitates the solvent movement by capillary forces – in the same way that a plant’s roots draw water up into the stem and upwards towards the leaves and flower.

The M-Spin Difference: Nanofibrous Metals with Ultrafast Wicking

M-Spin’s nanofibrous metals offer a step-change for VC wicks with enhanced coolant transport. An ideal wick combines high porosity, small pore size and high surface area in a small layer (< 50 µm). Current materials cannot satisfy all criteria simultaneously – whereas the nanofibrous metals’ blend of high porosity, high surface area, and thickness are perfectly optimised for this purpose.

M-Spin have demonstrated a 50% increase in solvent wicking compared to conventional copper mesh, which translates into a projected >2x increase in cooling performance. This advance enables AI chip designers to have more stable high-power operation using thinner and more compact designs, while lowering energy costs and prolonging chip lifetime.

The Verdict – Cool It or Lose It

With the rapid expansion of AI, there is a significant economic and environmental value to reducing power and water consumption of datacenters, and prolonging the life of their processors.

M-Spin’s nanofibrous metals in vapour chamber wicks remove the need to compromise between chip output and heat generation, allowing datacenters to run their processors harder while consuming less power and water. By focusing on thermal management, we allow datacenters to meet tomorrow’s demands without sacrificing sustainability.

References

1. https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=24944#:~:text=With%20proper%20TIM%20application%2C%20the,this%20increase%20to%20just%205%25

2. https://gbc-engineers.com/news/data-center-sustainability-trends#:~:text=Cooling%20has%20long%20been%20one%20of%20the,30%25%20to%2040%25%20of%20total%20energy%20usage.

3. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2025/ph240/huang1/#:~:text=The%20ideal%20lower%20bound%20under,the%20other%20current%20cooling%20technologies.

4. https://eng.ox.ac.uk/case-studies/the-true-cost-of-water-guzzling-data-centres

Reflections on the hydrogen industry as we go into 2026

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:43:09 GMT

The M-Spin team has attended, presented, and exhibited at a lot of industry events recently (a couple of photos are below). A lot, although not all, of these have been hydrogen focussed. So as we come to the end of a turbulent year, we thought it would be interesting to summarise some of the key themes we heard and give some of our perspectives on them. Opinions are my own!

Hydrogen – Some key themes and perspectives

In no particular order, here are some of the major themes we’ve been hearing:

Signs of life in the market… – It’s no secret that it’s been a rough year for the hydrogen industry. Cancellations, push back on timelines & deployments, some high profile failures. But at recent events there was a general sense that 2025 is the bottom. Maybe there’s a bit of wishful thinking included, but it felt more grounded than that. Especially on the systems-integration side, people were pointing to a pick-up in actual orders, not just vibes from the ether. There was quiet confidence that from 2027/28 things would really pick-up steam.
…but growing realism on use cases – We’re finally seeing some recognition that some hydrogen use cases may not make sense, and the industry should be focusing on the ones that do. And “About time” from my perspective! The whole binary “Hydrogen will solve everything” vs. “Hydrogen is useless” is not helpful IMHO. Some applications clearly just aren’t going to fly (e.g. passenger fuel cell vehicles), while others are almost no-brainers (replacing today’s grey hydrogen for chemicals production). In between there’s lots of complexity and dependencies.
Focus on hydrogen as a feedstock, not a fuel – Hydrogen is just way more compelling as a feedstock than as a fuel. We’ve got plenty of fuel alternatives, and thermodynamics aren’t favourable for H₂-as-fuel. But as a reductant? Hydrogen is versatile, effective, and hard to beat in many applications.
Innovation needed—everywhere – Production, transport, storage, end use. And we probably need more love for the “unsexy” stuff: pumps, compressors, power electronics. (I had no idea that even co-located renewables + electrolysers often still go DC→AC→DC, with all the pointless losses that implies!)
Electrolysis still rules—but pyrolysis and gasification are in the mix – Tons of cool electrolyte tech happening, from fundamentals to making big kit work in the real world. But there’s also a healthy number of pyrolysis and gasification players around. Great in principle, but lots of difficult engineering challenges—variable feedstock, impurities, low efficiencies, etc. Still, the market is big enough for multiple winners. It’ll likely come down to “horses for courses”, but I would bet that electrolysis will always have by far the biggest slice.
PEM and AEM are where the electrolysis buzz is – Conventional AWE is still around, of course, but most of the innovation and energy is going into PEM and AEM. Whether that’s due to strength or weakness on the part of the (mostly Western) players attending is probably a matter of perspective…
The supply chain is still a mess – Fragmented, immature, and clearly one of the biggest challenges for the sector. This is exactly where government could really make a difference… but aside from generic “ecosystem building” talk, I didn’t see much in the way of real, concrete action to be honest.
The sector can’t rely subsidies forever… – Support and regulation can give the sector a boost, but they can’t be the business model. We need applications that make sense on their own two legs. More springboard, less crutch.
…but well targeted support can be really helpful… – Many people I spoke to mentioned the positive impact of the SAF (sustainable aviation fuels) mandate from the EU/UK. It’s a good example of how to create incentives for new technology development without being proscriptive – nobody is saying you have to use green hydrogen for SAFs, just that if you don’t come up with some way of doing it you’re going to get fined. This has parallels with the EU’s ever tightening rules for car emissions which successfully drove a big improvement in drive chain efficiency without specifying how you would do it technically. In our view this is one of the best ways of stimulating progress.
Policy consistency is key – Yes, good policy, like the SAF initiative, is essential. But consistent policy matters even more. Constant chopping and changing—like the on-again, off-again enthusiasm for H₂ blending into natural gas—helps precisely no one.

M-Spin’s stand at the Hamburg H2 Expo where we officially launched our “Nanomesh” range of ultra-high surface area metal products

M-Spin Head of Product Development, Dr. Ian Johnson, explains the features of M-Spin’s technology at the Royce/HII Hydrogen Innovation Showcase

How M-Spin current collectors can revolutionise rechargeable batteries

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 10:04:00 GMT

At M-Spin we talk a lot about electrolysis and green hydrogen production - and indeed, this is one of our major focus markets. But electrolysis is far from the only use of M-Spin materials, with one particularly important application being batteries.

This article explores how M-Spin materials can be used in batteries, which segments of the battery market are a particularly good fit for our materials, and how the properties of M-Spin materials can drive breakthrough performance in these segments.

Batteries – The innovation opportunity

From the early days of the portable electronics revolution in the 90’s, to more recent applications in electric vehicles (EVs) and grid storage, rechargeable technologies such as Li-ion batteries have become ubiquitous in modern life. This trend is only going to accelerate with the global shift to an electrified, decarbonised society – batteries are a crucial enabler for renewable energy generation, storing excess energy at peak generation and releasing energy at times of high demand. Indeed, the cost of solar power combined with energy storage is cheaper than coal and nuclear power generation in the sunniest parts of the world, with prices dropping >20% within the past year alone. [1] However, there continues to be a need to make batteries smaller, lighter and cheaper to make, to further accelerate their integration and adoption worldwide and improve the profit margins of cell manufacturers.

It’s important to discuss the basic structure of a battery before we can understand how to improve them. Conventional batteries such as Li-ion batteries resemble a lasagne - built from multiple layers of anodes and cathodes (electrodes), which are adhered to current collectors (Cu for anodes and Al for cathodes). The anodes and cathodes are layered between separators (a porous polymer membrane ) and the entire stack is saturated with electrolyte – the “sauce” of the battery that allows lithium to flow through the cell. When the cell is charged or discharged, Li shuttles between the anodes and cathodes, either releasing or storing energy depending on the direction of the flow. The current collectors allow an electric current to flow into the anodes and cathodes. This battery structure can provide power, reversibly, over thousands of charge and discharge cycles.

[1] https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/Ember-24-Hour-Solar-Electricity-June-2025-6.pdf

Figure 1. A schematic of a Li-ion pouch cell, with a cross section highlighting key components

Typically, the approaches taken to improve Li-ion batteries have focused on either improving the anode or cathode materials, or optimising the engineering of the cell. The former involves increasing the amount of Li the electrodes store, and/or raising the cell voltage; the latter involves reducing the size and mass of “dead weight” components such as separators and cell-casings. Until relatively recently, innovation within current collectors has been relatively modest – and yet, as we detail below, there is enormous potential for advances in current collectors to transform both existing and future battery technologies.

Batteries – it's not all Li-ion

You’d be forgiven for thinking that lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries have essentially taken over the battery world, certainly for rechargeables. And to a certain extent you’d be right – the growth of Li-ion has been remarkable, and Li-ion now represents 66% of the rechargeable battery market .

Nevertheless, Li-ion batteries are not without their disadvantages

Cost – Despite incredible cost decreases over the past few years, Li-ion batteries are still relatively expensive.
Safety concerns – Newer variants (e.g. lithium iron phosphate, LFP) are safer, but the dangers of thermal runaway are real as demonstrated by several recent incidents such as the fires at Moss Landing and Otay Mesa in California.
Material shortages – Again, the shift to LFP has reduced concerns regarding elements such as Co, but concerns over the availability of lithium and other elements persist, especially given the projected growth of the market. Recycling is a possible solution, but is in its infancy.

These disadvantages are particularly acute for large stationary storage (e.g. grid storage) where cost, safety and availability are critical concerns, whereas energy density (the big advantage of Li-ion for mobility applications) is less of a concern. For this reason, development of alternative battery types continues apace. Some battery types that have received particular attention for this application include lithium-sulfur (LiS), metal anode (e.g. lithium anode), sodium-ion, and sodium-sulfur (NaS).

Lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries use lithium metal on the anode and sulfur on the cathode. In theory they have a much higher specific energy density than conventional Li-ion batteries and use cheap and readily available materials. However, they do face challenges particularly around lithium metal safety and cycle life (see below).
Li-metal anode batteries are a broader class of battery types that includes Li-S, but also a wider range of cathode types including a variety of oxide materials and conventional Li-ion cathodes.
Sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries are similar to conventional Li-ion batteries but use sodium ions as the shuttle between anode and cathode rather than lithium ions. Their big advantage is that they use abundant materials (i.e. Na over Li). However, they suffer from lower energy/power density and lower cycle life. Further, their cost advantage is being eroded as the Li-ion market moves towards LFP.
Sodium-sulfur (Na-S) batteries use liquid sodium and liquid sulfur electrodes and cycle between the pure elements (charged) and Na2S4 (discharged). The have a similar energy density to lithium-ion batteries but use only inexpensive and low-toxicity materials. Their big challenge is low cycle life and their high temperature of operation. A variant of these batteries (often referred to as “Zebra” batteries) uses nickel chloride instead of sulfur on the cathode.

Next Generation Current Collectors – The M-Spin Difference

The main role of the current collector is twofold: to distribute electrical current to the electrodes and add mechanical resilience. As the electrodes expand and contract as they store and release lithium, the current collector provides a vital anchor that holds the electrode together. Historically, innovation within current collectors has been restricted to making them thinner, with the state-of-the-art current collectors at or below 8 microns thickness. At such low thicknesses, the mechanical integrity of the foils starts to become limiting, with increasing risk of tearing, snapping and elongation during cell fabrication. A way to circumvent this is to deposit thin layers of metal (1 micron) on polymer sheets (<5 microns), allowing for thinner current collectors to be made with less metal and greater mechanical strength. However, all of these materials are flat, 2D structures – leaving the door open for greater innovation by incorporating 3-dimensionality and porosity into current collector design.

M-Spin's current collectors are expected to make a dramatic impact on both current- and next-generation battery technologies. Our current collectors are formed from fibres about 1 micron in diameter (one hundredth the width of a human hair), making an interconnected 3D network with high surface area and porosity. The increased surface area compared to conventional foils (over 1000x) reduces the resistance between the current collector and anode and cathode materials, improving the energy efficiency of batteries, whilst also improving the adhesive forces between the electrodes and the current collectors. Moreover, the porosity enables enhanced Li-transport within the battery structure, allowing Li to diffuse more readily during charge and discharge and increasing the high-power performance of cells. Finally, the 3D nature of the electrodes can enmesh with the anodes and cathodes, constricting the expansion and contraction of the active materials within the metallic strands and improving the lifetime of the battery by preventing electrode cracking and delamination with cycling. Indeed, it is this combination of factors that makes M-Spin's current collectors particularly appealing for next-generation battery storage technologies, so-called “beyond Li-ion" batteries.

Figure 2. An image depicting the enmeshment of anode materials within a 3D copper mesh, with empty space available for anode expansion and contraction and electrolyte permeation.

Figure 3: The Li-ion electrochemical behaviour of M-Spin's Ni ₃ S ₂ -Ni metal composite cathode and current-collector

As discussed above, one potential energy storage technology of the future is the lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery. Sulfur has a significantly higher capacity (>800 mA h g ⁻¹ achievable, >1600 mA h g ⁻¹ theoretical) than current-generation NMC cathode materials (~200 mA h g ⁻¹ ) but suffers from rapid capacity fade (among other issues) due to dissolution of Li _x S _y species into the electrolyte during cycling. One approach to mitigate this is to use a sulfide cathode, such as Ni ₃ S ₂ , which sacrifices some of sulfur’s capacity to avoid formation of soluble Li _x S _y , and increase capacity retention. By treating M-Spin's Ni current collector with sulfur, we can generate a Ni ₃ S ₂ coating on a Ni current collector surface, making a composite cathode/current collector with high electrolyte permeability, electrical conductivity, and cyclability. M-Spin's electrode displayed a significant areal capacity advantage compared to current-generation Li-ion cathodes, offering a unique approach to fabricate next-generation battery technologies.

Another opportunity for M-Spin's current collectors is within metal anode batteries, e.g. using pure Li-metal in the place of conventional graphite anodes in the cell, which offer significantly higher energy densities compared to conventional Li-ion batteries. The very first Li-based rechargeable batteries actually used Li-metal anodes; however, with repeated cycling the Li metal forms metallic spikes (called dendrites) that cause short-circuits, fires and explosions. Replacing Li with graphite prevents dendrite formation and improves the safety of Li-ion batteries, at the expense of a battery that is heavier and takes up more space. One way to improve the safety of the Li metal anode is to use a porous, high-surface area current collector – providing many places where Li metal can form during the battery charge, and containing any dendrites that may form, so the battery may be cycled safely. As such, we anticipate M-Spin's Cu current collector product will enable safer and more energy-dense batteries based on metal anodes.

Summary and conclusion

Batteries continue to revolutionise the world. They have already transformed the way we live, but innovation in battery technology continues at pace. Further development of the current collectors offers one particularly promising route to further improve performance; advances in current collector technology promises to improve not only current-generation Li-ion batteries, but also be a critical enabler for the next generation of energy storage technologies.

M-Spin's novel ultra-high surface area current collectors are ideally suited for current collector applications and have already demonstrated impressive performance advantages in test cells. Specifically, we see greatest potential for application in emerging battery technologies (such as lithium metal anode and lithium-sulfur batteries) that offer high energy density, as well as cost and safety advantages over the current state-of-the-art. Such progress promises cheaper portable devices and vehicles that last longer on a charge. Moreover, as the contribution of renewables to electricity grids increases worldwide, any new battery technology that can store substantial amounts of renewable energy with increased safety and at lower cost is a huge commercial opportunity. Our current collectors are therefore well placed to drive future advances in energy storage technologies and capitalise on these trends.

If you’d like to find out more about our technology and how it can help your application, please get in touch at hello@m-spin.co.uk .

https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/Ember-24-Hour-Solar-Electricity-June-2025-6.pdf
Source: https://www.imarcgroup.com/rechargeable-battery-market

[1] https://ctif.org/news/fire-largest-bess-us-led-evacuation-1500-residents-near-moss-landing-fire-left-burn-out

What’s the big deal about surface area?

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 15:33:23 GMT

M-Spin produce metallic mats with >1000x the surface area of competing products. But, OK, so what? Why is surface area so important? Why do we make such a big deal about it?

This article explores why surface area matters, how M-Spin creates materials with such a high surface area, and how this drives high performance.

“God made the bulk; surfaces were invented by the devil” – Wolfgang Pauli

Surfaces behave very differently to the inside (or “bulk”) of materials. In the bulk every atom of the material is surrounded (and bonded to) other atoms. However, at the surface the atoms are missing neighbours. Other atoms and molecules can take the place of the missing neighbours, binding to the surface, and undergoing reactions. Chemical reactions with solids always take place at surfaces.

With this understanding, we can clearly see that the more surface area a material has, the higher the density of reaction sites is – i.e. that if all other things are equal then high surface area will mean a faster reaction rate. And reaction rate is of critical importance for many everyday devices. For example in batteries a faster reaction rate means more rapid charging and discharging.

A good example of the importance of surface area is provided by flour. This is not normally considered a hazardous material, and indeed in a domestic setting it generally isn’t. However, if clouds of flour dust are formed by processing equipment (e.g. in a mill or bakery) then the flour/air mixture can actually explode. Indeed in 1878 an explosion at a grain mill killed 22 people. In such clouds the high surface area of the fine flour particles is fully exposed to the air which can lead to extremely rapid combustion and explosion. However, when it is settled in a jar or packet the effective surface area of the flour is much lower and it is essentially not hazardous (unless you eat too much cake…).

Of course, other factors like temperature affect reaction rate. But the bottom line is more surface area means faster reactions. And faster reaction in electrochemistry and catalysis translates into performance advantages like high energy density, high power density, lower energy costs and reduce material needs.

So how do you make a material with a high surface area?

The simplest way is simply to break a material into smaller pieces. A hypothetical worst-case for surface area is a single large ball. However, if we were to break the ball into 8 smaller balls, the surface area would double while keeping the amount of material the same, as shown schematically below left. [1]

In fact mathematically, the surface area to volume ratio is proportional to 1/r, where “r” is the radius of the spheres. This means as the radius gets smaller and smaller, the surface area rises at an ever increasing rate (as shown above right) - i.e. the value of making materials smaller gets better and better as we continue reducing particle size.

The same kind of relationships hold true for shapes other than spheres, such as fibres. We exploit this at M-Spin by making materials from networks of extremely fine fibres. The super high surface area of these materials facilitates very fast reactions.

Proving the performance advantages

M-Spin materials have a “nanofibrous” structure that gives them extremely high surface areas. This gives them a structure a lot like candy floss [2], although a lot more robust and much less tasty![3] This structure achieves over 1000 times the surface area of conventional metal foam materials: specifically, our metallic mats achieve a surface area of up to 10 m2 per gram. To put that in context, a kilogram of our material has the same surface area as a football pitch.

The structure of M-Spin materials is shown below and compared to a more conventional material. The difference is feature size and hence surface area is very evident.

M-Spin produces these materials via a proprietary process in which the metal strands are “spun” onto a surface before being heat treated to form the final product. This process has a number of significant advantages:

It is zero waste – all of the metal goes into the product
It is highly scalable – the process can be used to rapidly coat large areas
It is highly flexible – it’s easy to change composition, fibre size and morphology

These features give the M-Spin process major advantages over other techniques such as chemical etching (which is inherently wasteful and uses hazardous chemicals), 3-D printing (which is slow and hard to scale), and bundle drawing (which struggles to create very fine fibres).

Proving the performance advantages

This is all great in theory, but does it translate into high performance in practise? Fortunately the answer is a resounding “yes”.

M-Spin: Enabling high throughput and efficiency electrolysers

Electrolysers use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. If renewable electricity is used then the resulting zero carbon hydrogen is called “green hydrogen”. Green hydrogen can be used to directly replace “grey hydrogen” produced from natural gas in chemicals production (in particular ammonia), or other hydrocarbon fuels via conversion to synthetic fuels. Even just the former would result in massive greenhouse gas emissions savings. Production of ammonia alone results in emissions of over a gigatonne of CO2, more than the total emissions of the UK and France combined.

The most established type of electrolysis systems are alkaline electrolysers. These typically use nickel foams and meshes as the electrodes/current collectors where the water splitting reaction takes place. However, the low surface area is a limiting factor on performance. M-Spin’s ultra-high surface area nickel nanofibrous drive much high rates of hydrogen production, in fact 3-5x the rate of conventional materials (see figure), and at higher efficiency. This performance could drive reductions of the cost of green hydrogen by 20-30% , enabling the use of green hydrogen in a much wider range of applications and the significant emissions reductions that result.

M-Spin: Enabling high capacity batteries

It’s hard to imagine modern life without batteries. From small batteries powering consumer devices to huge arrays attached to the national grid, batteries are critical for virtually every aspect of society. For batteries there are two particular metrics of critical importance; the energy density which determines how much energy can be stored within a given space, and the power density which determines how quickly this energy can be delivered. In batteries the electrodes and current collectors are critical components that determine these parameters. High surface areas means that both a lot of energy can be stored and it can be delivered quickly.

The most familiar type of batteries are Li-ion batteries that are used in most consumer products and electric vehicles. However, there are many other types of battery which being developed for other applications. For example sodium-ion, metal-air, metal-sufur and redox-flow batteries are being looked at as good options for storing “excess” renewable energy for later use in times of high demand (often called “stationary storage”). We have shown that by using an M-Spin NiS-Ni mat as cathode of lithium-sulfur battery we can increase the areal capacity[4] by a factor of 4 versus state of the art batteries (> 20mAh cm-2 Industry standard around 5 mAh cm-2).

Concluding remarks

Surface area is one of the most important factors influencing the performance of materials in electrochemical devices such as electrolysers and batteries. M-Spin’s nanofibrous materials offer >1000x the surface areas of other materials. We have demonstrated that this surface area delivers dramatic performance improvements for alkaline water electrolysis. Stay tuned for our next post, where we will discuss the impact we can make in batteries in more detail!

If you’re interested in learning more about M-Spin’s materials please do get in touch with us: hello@m-spin.co.uk

A sphere has the lowest surface area to volume ratio of any shape.
Cotton candy if you’re reading this in the US.
This should go without saying, but just to be clear: This is an analogy. It is very not recommended to eat our products.
Areal Capacity Areal capacity refers to the amount of electrical charge a battery electrode can store per unit area. This is usually expressed in units of milliampere hours per square centimetre (mAh/cm²).