Innovative Battery Technology Developed at Rutgers Licensed to Battery Safety Consortium’s IP Exchange

June 17, 2026 - 23:43

A breakthrough in battery safety, first developed ten years ago by a Rutgers University engineering professor, is now being licensed for worldwide use through a major battery industry consortium. Professor Glenn Amatucci and his team at the Rutgers School of Engineering created a new type of current collector that could significantly reduce the risk of battery fires and failures.

The technology focuses on a fundamental part of battery design. Current collectors are the metal foils inside a battery that carry electrical current between the electrodes and the external circuit. In conventional lithium-ion batteries, these collectors are made of copper and aluminum. Under certain failure conditions, such as overcharging or internal short circuits, these metals can become unstable and contribute to thermal runaway, the dangerous chain reaction that causes batteries to catch fire or explode.

Amatucci's innovation replaces these standard metal foils with a specially engineered structure. While the exact composition remains proprietary, the new design is intended to interrupt the electrical flow at the first sign of a dangerous condition, acting like a built-in circuit breaker. This stops the battery from overheating before a fire can start.

The technology has now been licensed to the Battery Safety Consortium's IP Exchange. This consortium is a collaborative platform that allows companies in the battery industry to share and license patented safety technologies. By making Amatucci's invention available through this exchange, the goal is to speed up its adoption across the entire industry, from electric vehicles to consumer electronics.

Professor Amatucci explained that the idea came from a simple question about how to make the battery's internal structure inherently safer, rather than relying on external safety systems. The licensing deal marks a major step toward seeing that decade-old idea built into millions of batteries worldwide, potentially preventing countless accidents. The consortium expects the technology to be particularly valuable for large-format batteries used in electric cars and grid storage, where safety is the highest priority.