Celina Mikolajczak Joins Lyten as Chief Battery Technology Officer

Former Tesla, QuantumScape Executive Will Accelerate Lyten’s Product Development of its North American Lithium-Sulfur Battery

Lyten, an advanced materials company committed to delivering next-generation lithium-sulfur batteries and other high-performance products infused with Lyten 3D Graphene™, today announced the appointment of Celina Mikolajczak as Chief Battery Technology Officer.

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Celina Mikolajczak joins Lyten as Chief Battery Technology Officer. (Photo: Business Wire)

As the leader of Lyten’s Battery Product Innovation Group, Mikolajczak is responsible for advancing the development of the LytCell™ lithium-sulfur battery to full commercial readiness and optimization. She brings decades of EV battery development experience from cell engineering and manufacturing positions at leading battery companies, including Tesla, Panasonic, and most recently QuantumScape.

“Celina’s deep experience and knowledge in the highly sophisticated areas of cell engineering and the scaling of full cell architectures are unparalleled,” said Dan Cook, Lyten CEO and Co-Founder. “Celina’s vision and disciplined approach to the introduction of EV batteries is fully aligned with Lyten’s goal to deliver a high capacity, long cycle performing cell architecture to the marketplace. She recognizes the opportunity to accelerate the added dimensions of sustainability, safety, and re-shoring of critical North American cell manufacturing at a time of significant geopolitical and supply chain risk,” Cook added. “She is a critical addition to the Lyten executive team as we focus on our LytCell lithium-sulfur battery in the near term for our automotive OEM and US government energy storage customers, and in the long term, on other lithium-sulfur storage applications.”

“It’s impossible to ignore the fact that there will be insufficient nickel capacity to support even the currently announced OEM EV platforms,” Mikolajczak emphasized. “The industry needs alternatives to the high nickel cathodes used in conventional lithium-ion cells to meet the world’s automotive electrification and environmental goals. Lyten’s lithium-sulfur technology is one of the most promising for high-performance nickel-free battery chemistries, and I am excited to lead the deep technical bench at Lyten to deliver this energy storage platform to the marketplace.”

As chief battery technology officer, Mikolajczak will join Kevin Rhodes, VP of Battery Development, (former Chief Engineer at AVL), Jim Paye, VP of Product Management (former head of R&D at A123 Systems), and Zach Favors, VP of Battery R&D, (former CTO of NexTech Batteries) to head up Lyten’s Battery Product Innovation Group.

Mikolajczak will also partner with Greg Deveson, who was recently promoted to Chief Operating Officer after serving as President, Automotive. He oversees the firm’s Operations Engineering, Manufacturing, Program Management, and Materials teams. Previously, Deveson was President of American Axle & Manufacturing’s Driveline business unit.

“We’ve expanded our extraordinary team of talented executives, designed to build upon Lyten’s momentum to commercialize lithium-sulfur batteries, in addition to other disruptive Lyten 3D Graphene-based products,” noted Cook.

Mikolajczak has a long history of researching and delivering commercially viable and qualified battery architectures to the EV marketplace. Her technical consulting practice at Exponent focused on lithium-ion cell and battery safety and quality. She then took a senior management position at Tesla focused on cell quality and materials engineering and helped develop the battery cells and packs for Tesla’s Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Roadster Refresh. In 2019, she joined Panasonic Energy of North America, where she became Vice President of Engineering and Battery Technology, evolving Panasonic’s 2170 cell design and production processes to enable the output of billions of cells per year.

In 2020, Mikolajczak was named to Automotive News’ 100 Leading Women in North America; and was named by the Silicon Valley Business Journal as one of its “Women of Influence for 2022.”

About Lyten 3D Graphene™

Lyten’s core innovation is a proprietary and infinitely tunable 3D Graphene advanced materials platform. This patented class of carbon morphologies has the potential to revolutionize and decarbonize a vast array of innovative products across many industries.

When infused in advanced polymer composite systems, it significantly reduces weight, while at the same time increasing the strength of the base material for applications in ultra-lightweighting of packaging, automotive components, and metals. Lyten 3D Graphene, as a frequency selective material, also promises to radically advance the sensitivity and capabilities of chem/bio sensors for applications in industrial health & safety, transportation, and distribution industries.

Infusing Lyten 3D Graphene into our EV batteries provides the potential to unlock the high energy density of lithium-sulfur up to three times that of traditional lithium-ion chemistries. It also enables a battery solution with a 60 percent lower carbon footprint than a conventional NMC-based lithium-ion battery. Due to the abundance of source materials in the lithium-sulfur battery chemistry, Lyten is currently executing plans to both source and manufacture EV batteries within North America.

About Lyten

Lyten is an advanced materials manufacturer committed to developing, sourcing, and manufacturing innovative, low carbon footprint products infused with Lyten 3D Graphene™.

Its first major commercial markets are in energy storage, advanced composite systems, and advanced sensors. Lyten 3D Graphene material, as well as LytCell™ EV batteries, will be initially manufactured at Lyten’s headquarters in San Jose, Calif.

Lyten was founded in 2015 and holds more than 280 issued or pending patents. To view open positions, visit lyten.com/jobs. For press kit: lyten.com/media-kit/

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