Leaders in lithium economy share secrets of supply chain innovation and energy scale-up

Leaders of QuantumScape and Lilac Solutions, two lithium technology companies, shared the role of their innovations in maximizing sustainability in the rapidly evolving lithium economy on Wednesday night.

QuantumScape’s battery cell technology stores energy more efficiently and reliably than the lithium-ion battery, paving the way for a more sustainable transition to large scale adoption of zero emissions vehicles.

“The goal is to make the world a better place starting with the energy challenge,” said the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Kevin Hettrich.

The event was hosted by the Stanford Energy Club (SEC). It took place at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) Room M109.

“Our goal is to bridge some of the divide between students who are interested in making a difference in the energy transition, and the industry at large that’s actually making that change happen,” said the club’s co-President Griffin Clark ’25.

SEC connects students to resources to either get involved in companies that are making a difference, or to do it themselves through entrepreneurship, Clark said.

The energy space is small compared to artificial intelligence (AI), but it is growing rapidly and SEC provides the perfect space for interdisciplinary collaboration in the realm of energy innovation. 

“Bringing engineers, undergrads, GSB students and people from a variety of backgrounds together fosters conversations that can eventually lead to team formations and actualizing ideas,” said co-President Rohan Parekk ’25 M.S. ’26. 

In 2013, Bill Gates invested in QuantumScape and the company formed a joint venture with Volkswagen in 2018. 

QuantumScape became a public in November 2020 through their Initial Public Offering (IPO), which was transformative in terms of access to capital, Hettrich said.

Hettrich believes an entrepreneur must be obsessed with their company in order to fully achieve their goals.

Lilac Solutions, the second company featured in the SustainX talk, designed a new high performance ion exchange technology to extract lithium. This eliminates the need for evaporation ponds, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. 

Snydacker said that breaking into the markets of incumbent lithium producers, who have been producing lithium for 30 years with traditional technologies, was difficult at first. But the market opened up recently due to the process of governments banning their processes based on extraction from evaporation ponds, given the substantial environmental footprint.

Incorporating engineering methods from one field into an adjacent field in novel ways is characteristic of Lilac Solutions, according to its President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) David Snydacker.

“In 2014 before the lithium booms of the last decade, I realized the best format to extract lithium is through ceramic ion exchange,” he said. “In the materials engineering I had been doing on the cathode, I was able to translate that into ion exchange.”

In the last five years, he added, incumbent producers have gone from denial to acceptance in needing to transition to new extraction methods very quickly. Oil and gas companies have also opened up in the last two years. 

“Based on public announcements, they are looking to leverage their subsurface teams to go after lithium. That’s opened up a whole new segment,” Snydacker said. 

Now, company teams are getting up to speed, but with their access to capital, they are positioned to be big players.

Snydacker continued: “There’s a focus on the U.S., which is great as well.”

While U.S. resources are more challenging from a drilling and chemistry standpoint, he believes we will see some very meaningful lithium production in the U.S. in the next five years.

The speakers also provided tips and insights for innovators in the energy space. 

“Hardtech has tons of risks because by nature things have never been done, but even if you fail hard, it is rewarding nonetheless,” Hettrich said.

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