KULR Technology Group, Inc. (KULR), through the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, KULR Technology Corporation, maintains expertise in three key technology domain areas: (1) energy storage systems and recycling, (2) thermal management solutions, and (3) rotary system vibration reduction.
Historically, KULR focused on thermal energy management solutions for space and Department of Defense (DoD) applications, with recent expansion into energy storage and vibration reduction markets as the logical...
KULR Technology Group, Inc. (KULR), through the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, KULR Technology Corporation, maintains expertise in three key technology domain areas: (1) energy storage systems and recycling, (2) thermal management solutions, and (3) rotary system vibration reduction.
Historically, KULR focused on thermal energy management solutions for space and Department of Defense (DoD) applications, with recent expansion into energy storage and vibration reduction markets as the logical next step. Combined, this energy management platform consists of high-performance thermal management technologies for batteries and electronics, AI-powered battery management and vibration mitigation software solutions, and reusable energy storage modules. The company’s intention is to advance and apply these technologies to make its world more sustainable by using less energy; using energy more efficiently; making energy consumption safer and cooler; using less materials to achieve these goals; and completing the circular economy through recycling.
KULR ONE and KULR ONE Design Solutions (K1DS)
KULR’s primary technical domain that is shaping the future landscape of the company is safe, high-performance energy storage solutions. To effectively support and provide energy storage solutions, a holistic approach is necessary. Batteries are an interdisciplinary technology, which require: multi-disciplinary expertise to address related electrical, thermal, mechanical, and electrochemical requirements; cell supply access to top-tier OEMs, cell level testing capabilities to characterize performance, quality, and safety behavior at the cell level; expertise in early concept design, modeling, and analysis; rapid prototyping and production capabilities; pack and system level thermal, mechanical, electrical, and abuse testing capabilities; expertise in battery management, controls, and monitoring; and ability to support beginning of life to end of life requirements for transport and recycling.
To address the need for a holistic approach, KULR developed a battery product and service portfolio over the course of the last decade that provides products, safety testing services, modeling and analysis services, electrical testing services, transport and recycling packaging and logistics, and battery design solutions. Collectively, this is referred to as KULR ONE Design Solutions (K1-DS), which is actively leveraged by the company to facilitate engagement with customers no matter the battery life cycle phase they are in.
The primary aspects of K1-DS utilized by industry are product sales of trigger cells and TRS, the safety testing methodologies, and the utilization of the K1-DS platform as a whole to develop customized energy storage solutions.
Internally, KULR has leveraged K1-DS to develop off the shelf KULR ONE architectures which represent a groundbreaking innovation that is driving the world’s transition to a more sustainable electrification economy. These revolutionary designs offer a unique combination of cutting-edge features, including unparalleled safety, exceptional performance, intelligent functionality, modular construction, reliability, and customizability. The KULR ONE battery packs have been engineered to meet the exacting demands of the world’s most demanding applications. As of now, the company is focused on the KULR ONE Space for space exploration, the KULR ONE Guardian for military applications, and the KULR ONE Max for rack-style grid energy storage systems, also referred to as Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). These architectures collectively offer a comprehensive solution that addresses the critical need for safe and reliable energy storage in a wide range of industries, from aerospace and defense to electric vehicles and consumer electronics. One of the key features of the KULR ONE family of battery packs is the modularity and consistency of the architectures. This allows for greater flexibility as customers can easily adjust the size and configuration of the battery pack to suit their specific application requirements while still also benefitting from testing previously conducted by the KULR team for their specific architecture. In addition to offering exceptional performance and reliability, the KULR ONE battery packs are also designed with safety as a top priority. They incorporate state-of-the-art thermal management technology to prevent overheating and ensure safe operation even in the most challenging environments. Overall, the KULR ONE family of battery packs, depicted with the following picture, is at the forefront of the global drive towards sustainable electrification. With its unparalleled combination of safety, performance, intelligence, modularity, reliability, and customizability, KULR ONE is positioned to revolutionize the way the company think about energy storage and powering the world’s most demanding applications.
KULR VIBE Solution
During 2022, the company acquired intellectual property from Vibetech International, LLC (‘Vibetech’), which allows KULR to expand itself as a vertically integrated energy management company focused on sustainable energy solutions. For nearly twenty years, the primary application has been aviation. However, advances in measurement and computing technologies have allowed KULR VIBE to provide transformative and scalable solutions across transportation, renewable energy (wind farm), manufacturing, industrial, performance racing and autonomous aerial (drone) applications among others. KULR VIBE addresses one the most challenging issues with advanced machinery today; excessive energy robbing vibrations that are destructive to both the machinery and in many cases the operator. The KULR VIBE suite of technologies utilize proprietary sensor processes with advanced learning algorithms to both achieve precision balancing solutions, and successfully predict component failure based on its comprehensive database of vibration signatures. Its enhanced AI learning algorithms pinpoint areas where excess vibrations cause a loss of energy that can lead to system malfunctions, weakened performance, and maintenance issues.
This technology can be utilized as a standalone solution or be paired with existing track and balance technology to facilitate vibration reduction, achieve increased energy production, and reduce mechanical failures thereby extending platform life. KULR VIBE recently balanced the motors and blades of a mission critical drone to demonstrate the benefits of the technology. The results were a 23% increase in battery life and a lift increase of 45%. Same motors, same blades, KULR VIBE optimized.
The KULR VIBE suite of products and services have provided vibration analysis and mitigation to global companies across multiple industries and sectors.
The Future is Energy + AI
The future of KULR is Energy + AI. The company is building its AI infrastructure on industry leading Nvidia and AMD semiconductor platforms, and they are hosted on a hybrid of private cloud and Microsoft Azure. As the world faces shortages of both technical expertise to design batteries and raw materials to build batteries, KULR aims to address this need with KULR ONE AI (K1AI). The company is collecting large quantities of performance and safety test datasets for the most highly used commercial lithium-ion cells and combining that data with AI techniques to drive battery design and reduce engineering touch time to market. This product is to target the following markets: aerospace and defense systems, such as CubeSat batteries meeting JSC 20793 safety requirements by NASA; power tools and industrial equipment; high-performance electric vehicles; electric vertical take-off and landing (‘eVOTL’); electric micro-mobility vehicles; and residential and commercial energy storage systems.
Energy Storage
Lithium-ion batteries are the dominant technology on the market for energy storage because of their cost and availability but do carry well documented safety risks. While rare, cell to cell thermal runaway in lithium-ion batteries can cause a fire or explosion. For example, an explosion at Arizona Public Service’s McMicken battery plant injured four emergency responders in 2019 and overheating caused the 1.2 GWh Moss Landing storage facility in California to go off-line. To reach net zero by mid-century will require an additional 245 GWh of battery capacity each year until 2030, but incidents of the like distill trust in battery technologies and threaten to slow the pace which is needed to achieve decarbonization goals. KULR’s passive propagation resistant (PPR) and thermal runaway shield (TRS) technologies prevent cell to cell thermal runaway propagation and inhibit fire and ejecta of a single cell from exiting the battery enclosure, making battery energy storage packs safe for homes, hospitals, schools, and universities, and more. KULR is partnering with leaders in the energy storage industry, such as Volta Energy Products, the subsidiary of Buffalo NY based parent company, Viridi, to increase deployments of safe, reliable, and durable energy storage safety systems to accelerate the broader energy transition.
Battery Recycling and Management
KULR-Tech Safe Case provides a safe solution to commercially store and transport lithium batteries, which is increasing in frequency as supply chain challenges and ESG commitments necessitate battery recycling and end-of-lifecycle management. Whether shipping a single battery, a battery-powered device or a load shipment of batteries, KULR’s technology mitigates the impacts of cell-to-cell thermal runaway propagation and ensures a safe journey. KULR’s Thermal Runaway Shield (TRS) technology is trusted by NASA to ship and store astronauts’ laptop batteries on the International Space Station. In addition, KULR combines its Passive Propagation Resistant (PPR) solutions with its new CellCheck intelligent battery management system to extend battery life. The CellCheck modular battery management system platform is KULR’s AI-powered battery safety technology for e-mobility, energy storage and fleet applications. It captures real time and lifetime battery intelligence, sensing adverse electrical, environmental, and physical events to analyze and control for maximum battery safety, reliability, and performance.
E-mobility
KULR is supporting the shift to electrified transport by enabling safer, lighter, and faster charging lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and micro mobility solutions. KULR’s passive propagation resistant (PPR) battery pack solutions increase battery energy capacity while preventing thermal runaway events that can lead to hazardous explosions, helping the transportation industry to address growing public safety concerns around electric vehicles, electric aviation and micro-mobility markets.
Vehicle technology advancements and EV range anxiety requires more battery capacity to expand the range and power of existing platforms while adding new, power-demanding components for advances such as 5G data networks. The additional strain on batteries increases the risk for overheating and serious failures and can damage sensitive chip architecture. In addition, overheating has been a key limiting factor for advancing fast charging battery technology. KULR’s carbon fiber thermal management technologies reduce the thermal resistance inside battery cells while increasing electrical conductivity to dissipate heat more efficiently to enable the safe deployment of fast charging batteries. With KULR, automotive OEMs and battery manufacturers can increase the energy capacity of battery cells so less cells are needed, making for lighter vehicles that drive further before needing to be charged.
Aerospace/Defense
KULR’s thermal management solutions enable the defense and aerospace industries to safely deploy electronic technologies that support critical missions and protect national security. The electronic devices being placed into aircrafts, satellites, and missiles are becoming ever smaller and more powerful. Lithium-ion batteries, which are already prone to overheating and propagation, are exposed to harsh thermal environments, as well as shock and vibration during aerospace and defense operations. The company has partnered with Lockheed Martin, Leidos and other prime contractors to develop and supply mission-critical technologies for hypersonic vehicles, high-power magnetic wave, and other defense systems.
High-Powered Computing & 5G
KULR’s portfolio of thermal management solutions target air and liquid-cooling of high-performance computing applications, such as crypto mining, cloud computing, AI, and AR/VR simulations to maximize performance, energy efficiency and safety. KULR’s proprietary carbon fiber-based suite of thermal interface materials leverage advanced carbon fiber based heatsink technology that offers customers highly customizable, lightweight, and cost-effective solutions with industrial-level reliability due to their high thermal conductivity, lightweight, and low contact pressure.
New Facility and IT-Systems
KULR maintains three facilities of operations. KULR California, located at 4863 Shawline St, San Diego, CA., supports the company’s fully automated battery cell screening line and remains the only U.S. automated facility capable of executing the test requirements of NASA Work Instruction 37(WI37). WI37 is the testing standard required for battery cells used on all manned missions for NASA. Additionally, the facility produces the company’s patented Thermal Runaway Shields, Fiber Thermal Interface materials, Cathodes, Phase Change Materials, and heatsinks.
KULR, on February 1st, 2024, relocated the KULR Texas facility previously located at 1692 N. Texas Avenue, Webster, TX to a significantly larger facility located at 555 Forge River Road, Suite 100, Webster, TX. The previous location provided 4800 ft2, whereas the new facility provides 17,560 ft2 supporting the growth of the company’s customer base and engineering team. The facility is conveniently located 2.1 miles from NASA Johnson Space Center and is surrounded by a large number of KULR existing and targeted customers. The facility will support research and development related activities for lithium-ion battery systems. This expanded space will provide room for additional personnel office space, an engineering design and prototyping sandbox, a 3D printing room, an electrical room for tab welding operations, an expanded CNC capability, Laser welding, Volume TRS manufacturing and a large warehouse for storage. Once fully operational, necessary actions will be completed to have the new location included in KULR’s existing ISO 9001 certification.
The company’s testing facility in San Leon, TX, will be consolidated into KULR Texas during the second quarter of 2024. This consolidation allows for maximum efficiency of operations of the company’s engineering talent while creating a showcase of advanced Fractional Thermal Runaway Calorimetry (FTRC), Bomb Calorimetry, Thermal Modeling, Destructive Battery pack testing, and SafeCase verification testing. This new location provides for greater customer engagements both on site and via live feed internationally.
KULR has engaged with Managed Solutions to enhance the company’s IT infrastructure and improve all aspects of Cybersecurity. As a sub-contractor for DOD programs, it is vital that KULR have state-of-the-art IT systems and controls. The best path based on the current scale of the company is to outsource this activity to a professional IT services organization. The result of this activity was an improvement of the company’s NIST score of over 140 points. Additionally, KULR has further increased its Cybersecurity initiatives by hiring FRSecure to act as a VCISO and provide continuous cyber threat training to the company’s personnel. They also will audit the company’s level of threat sophistication and ensure any weak link is addressed immediately. See Item 1C - Cybersecurity for additional information.
Sales and Marketing Strategy
The company employs various channels to market and sell its products and solutions, including direct sales to customers, as well as sales through representatives and strategic partners. Establishing direct relationships with key accounts allows for deeper technical interactions, faster turnaround times, and provides valuable feedback that helps inform product development and marketing efforts. To ensure that the company’s target customers fully understand the unique features and benefits of the company’s products and services, the company organizes technology day events. The company uses a combination of marketing approaches to reach prospects and customers, such as leveraging employee, representative, and strategic partner relationships, maintaining an informative website, attending industry conferences, and conducting market research. Recently, the company expanded its direct sales and marketing teams, including Mr. Ted Krupp, a highly experienced professional with important relationships in the Aerospace and Defense sectors, as the company’s new VP of Sales and Marketing. Looking ahead, the company plans to further expand its direct sales team to enhance its key account coverage and support a growing representative and distributor network.
Advertising and Communications Strategy
The company employs a diverse range of advertising and communication tools to reach its audience. These include commissioning impartial white papers and technical papers, participating in industry events, conferences, and symposiums as attendees, sponsors, and guest speakers. The company maintains a public relations consultant who oversees its press releases and media relations, ensuring that the company maintains a positive presence in newspapers, magazines, and blogs. To bolster the company’s social media outreach activities, the company has a dedicated SEO specialist. The company leverages its strong reputation within the thermal management and lithium-ion battery safety communities to spread positive feedback through word-of-mouth. Additionally, the company utilizes several social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, to reach a broader audience.
Intellectual Property and Patent Strategy
The company’s intellectual property strategy includes pursuing patent protection for new innovations in core carbon fiber architecture development, application development, acquisition of intellectual property, and licensing of third-party patents and intellectual property. As of December 31, 2023, the company had six patents granted and assigned to KULR, an exclusive license to four third party patents, and ten pending nonprovisional and provisional patent applications.
Product and Services
In addition to KULR ONE and KULR VIBE, here are some of the technologies, products and services the company offers to customers:
Lithium-Ion Battery Thermal Runaway Shield (‘TRS’): KULR has developed a thermal insulation technology aimed at passive resistance to thermal runaway propagation in Li-ion batteries in partnership with National Aeronautics and Space Administration Johnson Space Center (‘NASA JSC’). HYDRA TRS acts as a heat sink during normal Li-ion battery pack operation but also prevents thermal runaway propagation, which is a serious concern for aerospace and defense customers and electric vehicle manufacturers. The HYDRA is a vaporizing thermal capacitor that provides passive prevention of thermal runaway propagation (‘TRP’) in Li-ion battery packs. Thermal runaway can occur spontaneously in a Li-ion cell due to a short. This can trigger an explosive release of electric energy that ruptures the end cap resulting in a flare and combustion of cell materials. Released heat drives the triggered cell temperatures to > 500°C, causing a dramatic increase in neighboring cell temperatures. Temperatures above the critical 130°C greatly increases the chance for a short in adjacent cells and result in TRP. TRS keeps neighboring cell temperatures from rising above 100°C (well below the 130°C threshold) and prevents TRP.
KULR Automated Battery Cell Screening and Test System: KULR completed the installation of a fully automated battery cell testing platform this January in the company’s Sand Diego facility. The system fully supports the stringent requirements of NASA and the DOD. This platform has been designed to meet the entire specifications of NASA WI-037 battery testing requirements. This fully automated system is believed to be the only fully automated system capable of such performance. The company has designed the system to be modular and has installed a minimum of 500K cell capacity annually capable of handling 18650 and 21700 cells.
CellCheck: A scalable battery management platform to provide a new level of safety, performance optimization and regulatory compliance capabilities to the company’s customers. The company achieves this by putting together a modular architecture that is built on large data sets, performing an array of analytics, and then layering on top of it AI algorithms to provide predictive and preventative intelligence to the company’s customers. It’s modular so that the company can incorporate new capabilities and enhancements to the platform as the battery evolution accelerates in the coming years. This is another significant step to position KULR as a one-stop-shop total solutions provider of battery thermal energy and safety management.
KULR SafeCase: This product was developed for the commercial transportation and storage of Li-ion batteries. It is an extension of the product jointly developed with NASA, the TRS Bags, which safely store and transport Li-ion batteries to and in the International Space Station. The cases have been tested and granted special permits by the Department of Transportation (DOT) for shipment of Li-ion batteries up to 2.1KWh for shipment of batteries classified as DDR (damaged, defective or recall), recycling and prototype.
Fiber Thermal Interface Material (‘FTI’): KULR thermal interface materials (‘TIMs’) consist of vertically oriented carbon fiber velvets attached to a film of polymer or metal. The fiber packing density and orientation are selected to serve a wide range of applications, including hostile thermal and chemical environments, sliding interfaces, and interfaces with widely varying gaps. They can be coated for electrical isolation. They require low contact pressure and provide high thermal conductivity. Their light weight and high compliance make them uniquely suited for aerospace, industrial and high-performance commercial devices.
Phase Change Material (‘PCM’) Heat Sink: KULR PCM composite heat sinks consisting of a conductive carbon fiber velvet embedded with a proprietary heat dissipation medium having high latent heat at its melting point. Such heat sinks offer passive thermal control for instruments that would otherwise overheat or under-cool during periodic operations. A typical application involves lasers that dissipate heat but need tight thermal control where active cooling is unavailable.
Internal Short Circuit (‘ISC’) Device: In March 2018, KULR reached an agreement with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (‘NREL’), a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, to be the exclusive manufacturing and distribution partner for the patented ISC device, which causes predictable battery cell failures in Li-ion batteries, making them easier to study, and therefore, safer. Li-ion batteries are the industry and consumer standard for portable power; billions of individual battery cells exist and billions more are planned for production. They provide power for everything from smart phones and laptops to electric cars and space crafts. But Li-ion batteries fail, sometimes with catastrophic results. Due to the relative rarity of cell failures, scientists and researchers had been unable to reliably or accurately replicate latent defect cell failures in lab settings, impeding research into safer battery technology.
CRUX Cathode: The CRUX Cathode is composed of a carbon fiber velvet, providing a means of generating powerful electron pulses by field emission from the tops of the carbon fibers. CRUX Cathodes can be customized for different applications, including the generation of microwaves, x-rays, and laser radiation. They can be fabricated in a wide variety of physical configurations, ranging from simple planar and cylindrical forms to more complex lobed shapes.
Governmental Regulation and Environmental Compliance
Certain substances the company uses in its manufacturing process are subject to federal governmental regulations (such as Environmental Protect Agency regulations).
Research and Development
For the year ended December 31, 2023, the company’s research and development expenses were $6,195,400.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2023, the company held six U.S. patents and six non-provisional pending U.S. patent applications with expiration dates ranging from 2024 to 2035. In addition, KULR has exclusive license on four patents from its partnerships.
The company also has trademarks that are used in the conduct of its business to distinguish genuine KULR products; KULR has been granted trademarks for Class 9 and Class 17 applications.
History
The company was founded in 2013. It was formerly known as KT High-Tech Marketing, Inc. and changed its name to KULR Technology Group, Inc. in 2018.
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