Aluminum is arguably the most accessible metal — chances are there’s a roll of it in your kitchen. It’s cheap, abundant, and so ordinary that it rarely enters the innovation conversation. But a startup emerging from research at the University of New Mexico has uncovered a way to tap its potential for next-generation batteries.
Flow Aluminum, co-founded by CEO Thomas Chepucavage, is advancing a battery chemistry that pairs aluminum with carbon dioxide as an alternative to lithium. Here’s what that means: if the chemistry scales, the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles, grid storage, and other high-capacity systems could become safer, cheaper, and far easier to source domestically — reducing dependence on mined materials and lowering the environmental footprint of energy storage. The company sees accessibility as one of its greatest advantages.
“At a high level, making aluminium and CO₂ accessible as energy-storage materials is a major contribution to the greater sustainability of our energy system,” Chepucavage said.
Together, that progress is positioning a $1 metal as a serious contender in the global battery race.
The potential for aluminum to help ease escalating battery costs reverberates across the industry. As lithium continues to anchor a trillion-dollar supply chain that powers electric vehicles, grid storage, consumer electronics, and AI-driven data centers, Flow Aluminum’s technology offers a fundamentally different proposition. Developed by Chepucavage alongside co-founders Dr. Shuya Wei and Chris Fetrow, the system uses widely available materials to create a battery designed to be non-flammable, lower-cost, and easier to source domestically.
The company’s progress — from early coin-cell prototypes to advancing pouch-cell formats — has begun drawing attention not because it promises to replace lithium outright, but because it challenges the industry’s long-standing belief that meaningful innovation must revolve around it.
How Energy Startups Win — Quietly and at Scale
For energy startups, the path to success looks very different. Unlike consumer tech — where a single app or feature has to win over millions of users to scale — breakthroughs in energy innovation often emerge from reimagining existing materials and adapting them to solve expensive, system-wide challenges. And when that happens, scale often follows quickly and quietly.
Energy startups rarely need public awareness to reach a mass customer base. If a new chemistry or material lowers costs, reduces reliance on imported minerals, or improves grid reliability, it draws utilities, manufacturers, and infrastructure players with the resources to deploy it at massive scale. A single partnership or adoption decision can affect millions of end users, even if they never learn the startup’s name.
Flow Aluminum is a prime example of the kind of startup that thrives in energy: not one chasing consumer adoption, but one solving deep, costly problems embedded in the infrastructure we all rely on. And for founders like Thomas Chepucavage, success doesn’t hinge on becoming a household name — in this sector, impact can scale to unicorn levels long before the public ever hears your story.
