Department of Energy Backs Solidion’s Push to Develop U.S.-Made Battery Graphite

Solidion Technology has received new federal support to explore a more energy-efficient way to make high-performance graphite—one of the battery materials the U.S. is working to secure domestically.

The Dallas-based battery technology company said it’s been awarded a Department of Energy grant through ARPA-E’s competitive OPEN program to advance its research into electrochemical manufacturing of graphite from biomass-derived carbon.

The work—which uses electricity to turn organic, plant-based carbon into the high-quality graphite used in batteries—will be conducted in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of Solidion’s key collaborators in recent years.

Graphite is central to nearly every modern battery and is still dominated by overseas production. Solidion says the project supports the Department of Energy’s mission to reduce imports of critical energy materials from foreign sources.

The grant marks another milestone for publicly traded Solidion, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker STI, and has been building a portfolio of patented materials and components used in electric vehicles, grid-scale storage, and UPS systems backing AI data centers.

Improving American energy independence

Solidion says its approach—turning biomass-derived carbon into synthetic graphite through an electrochemical process—could diversify the nation’s supply chain while cutting the energy demands of conventional graphitization.

The company has recently been recognized for this direction. In 2025, Solidion and ORNL received an R&D 100 Award for their work on E-GRIMS, the company’s molten-salt electrochemical graphitization process. In practical terms, it offers a way to make battery-grade graphite with far less energy than today’s high-temperature methods.

Jaymes Winters, Solidion’s CEO, said the new DOE award reinforces the company’s position in advanced battery R&D. “This award demonstrates the cutting-edge superiority of Solidion’s extensive patent portfolio and innovation,” Winters said in a statement. “As a U.S. manufacturer, Solidion is poised to take advantage of its vast technological abilities.”

Solidion says the research with ORNL will help accelerate both development and commercialization. With pilot production facilities in Dayton, Ohio, the company already has a path to translate lab-scale work into manufacturing runs.

The company’s portfolio—more than 525 patents spanning silicon anodes, biomass-based graphite, lithium-sulfur, and lithium-metal technologies—illustrates how wide its ambitions run. Solidion said its technologies support a growing roster of energy storage systems aimed at EVs, aerospace, marine applications, and the AI data center market. In previous Dallas Innovates reporting, Solidion patented a graphene-enabled heat spreader that allows lithium batteries to charge in as little as five minutes—even in harsh weather.

A Dallas-based advanced battery technology company with national reach

In Dallas, with engineering and production operations in Dayton, Solidion now operates as a national player in advanced battery materials and next-generation energy storage systems.

The ARPA-E award adds momentum to a year marked by federal recognition, commercial pilots, and continued bets on how the next era of batteries will be built.

In October, Solidion announced its next-generation Uninterruptible Power Supply system for AI data centers. The PEAK Series system aims to cut space requirements by up to 30% while extending battery life up to threefold compared to conventional backup systems. The company said the system is built on its proprietary silicon-carbon anode cell and is expected to launch commercially in Q1 2026.

“AI data centers are among the most demanding and fastest-growing segments,” Winters said at the time, noting the need for compact and efficient backup power solutions.

In 2024, Dallas Innovates reported on Solidion’s BEEP (bipolar electrode-to-pack) technology, which simplified solid-state battery design and manufacturing—an approach the company said could accelerate progress in electric vehicle battery packs. DI also covered Solidion’s work using silicon and silicon-oxide anodes to improve energy density, with the potential to extend EV range by 20% to 40%.

Solidion noted that for EVs to be truly competitive with internal combustion engine vehicles, they need to be weather-independent and have “refueling” times comparable to filling up a gas tank

The company’s origins trace back to Honeycomb Battery Company, co-founded in 2015 by Bor Jang, whose long career in materials science spans graphene commercialization, anode development, and battery technologies. Honeycomb completed its business combination with Dallas-based Nubia Brand International, a special purpose acquisition company, in early 2024. The combined company was renamed Solidion Technology Inc., which began trading on Nasdaq on February 5, 2024, with Jang continuing as chairman and Chief Science Officer and Winters serving as CEO.