Austin, TX-based Infinitum, which pitches itself as a more sustainable electric motor company, is looking to help the highest-emitting CO2 sectors in the world decarbonize.

Helping to do this is its new-for-2024 and latest-generation Aircore motors. The EC version is said by the company to be the industry’s highest-efficiency motor system for energy-intensive commercial and industrial applications such as HVAC fans, pumps, data centers, and material handling equipment, and its new Aircore Power Gen is a smaller, lighter, and more efficient alternator that generates power more sustainably.

Beyond those two newest editions, the company is looking to disrupt a new sector, with its Aircore Mobility propulsion and traction motor, which is designed to extend the range of passenger and commercial EVs as well as aerospace, eVTOL, marine, construction, and agricultural machines. It’s important to understand how the company is disrupting the industrial sector to see what might be in store for mobility.

Tackling the industrial challenge
According to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, motors are the largest single energy end-user, consuming 53% of electricity globally. In the U.S. industrial sector, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report that motors consume nearly 70% of the total electricity used to power numerous core industrial applications such as compressors, pumps, fans, and material processing and handling equipment.

Most motors today waste energy because they operate at a single speed. Since 30% of the growth in global electricity demand by 2040 is expected to come from industrial motors as the sector expands and shifts to electrification, according to Deloitte, the adoption of higher-efficiency, variable-speed motors in industrial applications is critical for reducing energy and emissions.

Infinitum’s advanced motors meet this challenge through a VFD (variable frequency drive) that reduces energy usage by running at lower speeds when possible. They are 50% smaller and lighter, use 66% less copper and no iron in their stators, and consume about 10% less energy than traditional motors.

The company’s Aircore motor family, so named because its stator does not have an iron core, replaces the copper-wound iron core found in traditional motors with a lightweight PCB (printed circuit board) stator that is said to be 10 times more reliable. Manufacturing and servicing Infinitum motors is less carbon intensive than traditional motors and the motor’s modular design allows components to be reused multiple times.

“Our PCB stator is the heart of our sustainable electric motors and what allows us to deliver the efficiency and energy savings that are so important to our customers and the planet,” said Ben Schuler, Founder and CEO of Infinitum.

The investment community has taken notice of the company’s potential. In November, Infinitum announced $185 million in Series E funding led by Just Climate with participation from Galvanize Climate Solutions and NGP. Existing investors including Alliance Resource Partners, Rockwell Automation, Riverstone Holdings, Chevron Technology Ventures, Cottonwood Technology Fund, and Ajax Strategies also participated in this round, bringing total funding so far to $350 million.

The new funds will be used to increase production to meet customer demand and drive decarbonization in the industrial sector.

“Infinitum’s motors are a disruptive, high-impact solution that can be produced at scale and easily implemented to benefit industry through reduced energy consumption and waste,” said Benoit Grobon, a director at Just Climate.

The implementation of advanced motor technology in the U.S. industrial and commercial sectors has the potential to save 127 TW·h/yr, translating into cost savings of $14.7 billion and reductions of 90.2 MMT of CO2, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. This is equivalent to the annual electricity use of all households in California and North Carolina combined.

To accelerate the adoption of high-efficiency variable-speed motors across the global industrial sector, Rockwell Automation and Infinitum are jointly developing a motor system that is compatible with Rockwell’s industrial automation solutions. The resulting motor and low-voltage drive will be distributed through Rockwell, expanding the opportunity for global industrial sector clients to easily deploy a sustainable motor system to cut energy consumption, operating costs, and material waste.

“The ease and benefits offered by Infinitum’s combined motor and VFD system can serve as a catalyst for industrial companies to easily transition to using VFDs and save on energy costs,” said Barry Elliot, Global Vice President & General Manager, of Power Control, at Rockwell Automation.

Aircore for mobility
At last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Infinitum announced Aircore Mobility, an axial-flux propulsion and traction motor that it says delivers high power and torque density and operates with class-leading efficiency over a range of speeds and load conditions to maximize vehicle range.

As in other Aircore motors, the mobility version has a lightweight PCB stator with reduced mechanical losses, increased efficiency, significantly reduced noise and vibration, and ten times better reliability. Compared to conventional motors, it has the same benefits—10% more efficient, 50% smaller and lighter, and uses 66% less copper.

The Mobility motor that launched last year is covered by 32 issued patents and 44 pending patents. Leveraging its PCB stator design, the motor can achieve up to 4-5 times the current density of a conventional, liquid-cooled motor by using a technique that allows the coolant to be in direct contact with the stator, mitigating heat across a larger surface area, enabling high overload capability, and extended life.

“Our Aircore motor topology eliminates core losses and delivers a broader range of speeds and load conditions where the motor can operate at high-efficiency levels,” said Paulo Guedes-Pinto, CTO at Infinitum. “The Aircore Mobility motor offers a new avenue in extending the range for Class 1-8 vehicles, aerospace, marine, construction, and agricultural machines.”

Benefiting sustainability, the motor can be produced using fewer raw materials, and its modular design allows the housing, rotors, and stators to be reused multiple times, giving parts a second and third life to serve future generations. The motor can also be manufactured almost anywhere locally without complex assembly equipment, ​and its smaller size means more product is shipped in equal space, which drastically reduces transportation-related emissions.​

Infinitum is planning for more PCB production to meet volume demand for its upgraded industrial motors and mobility expansion. In April 2023, Infinitum announced the acquisition of Circuit Connect, Inc., a PCB fabricator based in Nashua, NH, in support of the motor maker’s efforts to become more vertical. The addition not only allows for an immediate substantial increase in PCB-stator production capacity but also provides a framework for continuous volume growth. Circuit Connect had supplied Infinitum with PCB stators for more than 5 years, being closely involved in developing the manufacturing process and quality product that is at the heart of Infinitum’s motors.

“Circuit Connect has worked side by side with us advancing and improving how PCB stators are made,” said Schuler. “Their acquisition will help us ensure consistent delivery of quality stator components as we execute on our hypergrowth phase and scale up manufacturing to meet the demand for our motors that can power the world with less energy and waste.”

Mining and marine first
The company thinks it will need every stator it can make as it plans for its new products and markets and quickly grows its human resources.

“We have 150 now, but we’re growing fairly rapidly,” Schuler told Futurride at CES of the company’s headcount. “We’ll be upwards of 220 by the end of this year.”

Compared to its industrial and alternator products, he says that the mobility motor has multiple stators and rotors for peak torque of 300 N·m (221 lb·ft) and continuous and peak power of 150 and 250 kW, respectively. At just 30 kg, the motor makes up to an impressive 8 kW/kg.

In the mobility space, Infinitum is heavily focused on mining and marine, then commercial trucking—in applications that can bring in revenue quickly, said Schuler. Most of the initial applications will replace hydraulics and power takeoffs.

In marine applications, there is potential for propulsion applications. A lot of ports are requiring boats, when coming into the harbor, to cut off their diesel engines and go to electric.

“There’s a lot of hybridization of the industry,” said Schuler. “That’s a fairly easy application. It’s at a slow speed. It’s not all the shock and vibration in the propulsion of the boat. Any application like that has a much easier entry, is a good one for us.”

For mining, the company’s motors could be used to replace hydraulics and propulsion for low-speed underground haul trucks.

For on-road trucks, the company is looking at replacing hydraulic power takeoff applications. One specific focus is replacing the actuation mechanism for can pick-up arms on trash-collection vehicles. He says there are millions of them on the road, most of which currently are hydraulic, and the company aims to target retrofit and new applications.

“That’s a big area that we’re learning about, and we’re thinking it will also be a much easier entry point, as opposed to the traction motor of the car designs,” said Schuler.

Supply for vehicles will begin at the end of this year of sample motors, which will have to go through testing and validation. Schuler estimates it will take about a year for that, then start with smaller volumes.

“It won’t happen overnight,” he said. “It’ll be like a few hundred, maybe all the way up to a few thousand in that first year. And then it will grow significantly year-over-year.”

Read the full article at Futurride.