The battery that's 99% water.
ZenQuo is developing aqueous zinc-ion batteries for home and grid energy storage - built from abundant Australian materials, at a quarter of the cost of lithium-ion, with no fire risk by design.
~99%
Water, by volume of electrolyte
5–20×
Cycle life from the additive
Against an otherwise identical additive-free electrolyte.
1,000+
Cycles demonstrated
Validated alpha prototype cells, at 60 Wh/kg.
Why now
Australia is the best market on earth for a safer battery
Australia is installing home batteries faster than almost anywhere on earth. Nearly half a million systems went in during the program's first year, adding around 13 gigawatt-hours of storage behind the meter. Almost every one of them is lithium-ion: an energy-dense chemistry, wrapped around a flammable liquid, originally designed to make laptops light.
ZenQuo is building a battery for the job Australians actually need done - sitting on a wall, storing sunshine, for years, without ever being a fire risk.
What we're building
Four things that make this work
- 01
Safe by chemistry, not by engineering
The electrolyte is around 99% water. There is no flammable solvent to ignite, so there is no thermal runaway to contain. Lithium-ion is made safe with cooling, battery management, enclosures and separation distances. ZenQuo is safe because there is nothing there to burn.
- 02
A quarter of the cost
A projected cost to the consumer of around AUD $250 per kilowatt-hour, against solar storage that often exceeds AUD $1,000. Built from abundant zinc and manganese, and assembled in ordinary air - no dry rooms, no inert atmosphere, far less factory capital.
- 03
The breakthrough that made zinc practical
Everyone knew zinc was the right material. The problem was corrosion and dendrites. ZenQuo's patented additive - at roughly 1% of the electrolyte - forms a self-assembling protective film that solves both, while leaving the electrolyte 99% water. The result is five to twenty times the cycle life.
- 04
Recyclable, and genuinely circular
Non-toxic components, fully recyclable cells, and no end-of-life problem handed to the next generation.
The breakthrough
Zinc's problem was never the zinc
Zinc has been the obvious candidate for stationary storage for decades - abundant, cheap, non-toxic, and it does not burn. What kept it out of the market was how it plates back onto the anode.
Without additive
cell shorted
Zinc plates unevenly. Needle-like dendrites branch out from the anode until one reaches across and shorts the cell, while corrosion consumes electrolyte alongside. The cell dies in months.
With ~1% additive
adsorbed additive film
The additive self-organises into a thin adsorbed film at the zinc surface. It suppresses corrosion and levels the electrodeposition, so zinc plates as fine, compact, uniform grains - five to twenty times the cycle life.
ZenQuo's patented additive sits at around 1% of the electrolyte and self-organises into a protective film at the zinc surface. It suppresses corrosion and levels the deposition - and because it works at 1%, the electrolyte stays 99% water.
Where we are
Stated plainly
ZenQuo is a UNSW Sydney spinout, founded in 2024 and backed by Uniseed. We have validated alpha prototype cells running past 1,000 cycles at 60 Wh/kg, and hold granted and pending patents on both our electrolyte and cathode technology.
TRL-4
Alpha prototypes validated
2
Patent families
One granted and in national phase, one filed.
What's next
The path from here
- Now
Alpha cells validated past 1,000 cycles at 60 Wh/kg; second-generation electrolyte IP filed.
- Next
A high-capacity pouch-cell prototype, and cell validation under the RACE for 2030 grid storage program, running to March 2027.
- Then
Manufacturing partnerships and licensing, with international market entry beginning in India through the CSIRO RISE Accelerator.
Backed by
Who is behind this
- Lead investor
- Founding institution
- CRC research partner
- RISE Accelerator
- Non-dilutive funding
- To do, before launch: source logo files for all five, with usage permission
The science is published. Read it, or come and build on it.
We are seed-stage and backed by Uniseed, and our technology is compatible with existing battery manufacturing processes.