BNAG Platform: Fire-Safe Battery Separators, BNxFlow Liquid Boron Nitride Thermal Interface Materials and Safer Battery Packs

Next-Ion Energy's Boron Nitride Aerogel (BNAG) platform is a quantum-engineered boron-carbon-nitrogen (B-C-N) material that forms a percolated 3D network of functionalised hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). It solves a long-standing trade-off in batteries and electronics: moving heat extremely well while staying electrically insulating. The platform has received two Horizon Europe Seals of Excellence (BNAG separator, No. 101217511; BNAG additive, No. 101248718).

One material platform, five applications across the battery value chain:

1. Fire-safe, fast-charging separators

Lithium-ion batteries catch fire or explode through thermal runaway. Our BNAG separator is chemically inert and thermally stable, prevents hot spots at the electrode-electrolyte interface, and is designed so batteries do not catch fire or explode. It also improves ion transport, reduces internal resistance and lithium plating, and enables fast charging, with 10 to 50% performance gains over current separators depending on chemistry. It is designed as a drop-in component for existing cell production.

2. BNxFlow: liquid boron nitride thermal interface material

Using a novel phase-processing technique, we transform boron nitride into a conformable, liquid-like aerogel. BNxFlow achieves an applied thermal conductivity of 70 to 90 W/mK (intrinsic 800 to 1000 W/mK), compared with 5 to 12 W/mK for conventional greases and 12 to 25 W/mK for high-performance pastes. This is a 5 to 18 times improvement, surpassing all commercially available non-metallic TIMs and approaching liquid metal, but without the risks of electrical conduction, corrosion or complex application.

Key advantages: phonon-dominated heat transport with very low interfacial resistance; a 10 to 20°C reduction in junction temperature, where a 15°C reduction corresponds to at least a 2.8 times longer semiconductor lifespan; a wide bandgap (5 to 6 eV) and thermal stability up to 800°C; resistance to pump-out and degradation under thermal cycling and vibration; and a patented self-healing mechanism, in which the structure reversibly densifies under thermal stress to maintain contact and recovers on cooling.

Applications: battery cells, modules and packs; EV power electronics; AI data centres and GPUs; edge systems and robotics.

3. Safer battery packaging

BNAG and BNxFlow can be integrated between cells and into modules and packs to dissipate heat and block thermal propagation from one cell to the next, helping prevent a single cell failure from becoming a pack fire. This is especially relevant for EVs in confined areas such as car parks and tunnels.

4. Battery second life

By lowering operating temperatures and reducing thermal degradation, BNAG extends battery lifetime and supports safer reuse of EV batteries in second-life applications such as stationary energy storage, where thermal safety is a key barrier.

5. Next-generation non-lithium batteries for extreme environments

Our aerogel platform also supports non-lithium chemistries (Na-ion, Mg-ion, Ca-ion and others) built for safety and resilience under extreme temperatures, vibration and demanding field conditions, including critical infrastructure, remote energy systems and resilient logistics.

Development status

Supported by two Horizon Europe Seals of Excellence, EIC funding for the B-C-N aerogel platform and an NSF SBIR Phase I award, and protected by multiple patents and patent applications. Flame-test comparisons with industry-standard separators and thermal performance data are available on request.

What we are looking for

Battery cell and pack manufacturers, EV and e-mobility OEMs, energy storage integrators, second-life battery companies, and data centre and electronics companies, for testing, joint development, licensing and supply agreements. We are also building consortia for HORIZON-CL5-2027-03-D5-06 (EV fire prevention), D2-06, D2-07 and D2-08.

Website: https://next-ion.energy