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Basic research. There are a lot of combinations to try. It makes sense to try them methodically and share the results, to avoid duplication of effort. (The expe

Basic research. There are a lot of combinations to try. It makes sense to try them methodically and share the results, to avoid duplication of effort. (The experiment of course can certainly be retried, in case there was an error, but the published result has value). There was a good interview of Doron Aurbach on this, but sadly it appears to have disappeared from Soundcloud. https://www.electrochem.org/ecs-blog/doron-aurbach-commercial-li-ion-batteries/ https://www.electrochem.org/ecs-blog/doron-aurbach-commercia... Chemistry and materials research is an especially bad fit for the startup solution model where everybody's repeating the same things, often even in secret. The startups instead build on top of that basic research. Like electric scooters or cars were built on top of the technology of cheap energy-dense lithium batteries.

pfdietz 7y ago
What a startup can do is focus on a technique, rather than a specific discovery, and use that technique to make discoveries. The example I'm thinking of is Siluria, an MIT spinoff (or, at least, involving people from MIT; they were based in the bay area), which used phage display templating to make catalysts. They came up with the first practical catalyst for the oxidative coupling of methane to produce ethane. I believe they've since been bought by a larger petrochemical company.
- Gravityloss 7y ago
  That might be good. I guess one problem with that is that if the technique is not published or even sold, then others can't use it to make discoveries.