October 27, 2006 for immediate release
George Adamson, Ph.D. Named Vice President of Product Development for Zinc Matrix Power
New vice president will play key role in the commercialization of high-performance, inherently safe, silver-zinc rechargeable battery technology
Camarillo, CA, Oct. 27, 2006 – Zinc Matrix Power, developer of new, rechargeable battery technology based on silver, zinc and water, has appointed George Adamson, Ph.D. as the company’s vice president of product development.
“As we move into product test and evaluation with major electronics companies in early 2007, Dr. Adamson will play a key role in helping us commercialize silver-zinc rechargeable battery technology, said Dr. Ross Dueber, president and CEO, Zinc Matrix Power. “Dr. Adamson brings a wealth of knowledge in process development and technology commercialization to our team. We couldn’t be happier that he’ll be leading product development efforts for Zinc Matrix Power at this critical time in our company’s history.”
Adamson was most recently the head of Virtic, LLC, a company providing contract engineering and scientific consulting. He was previously the vice president of research and development at Valence Technology Corporation, a firm developing and manufacturing lithium-ion polymer batteries. While at Valence Technology, Adamson managed a department of 26 scientists, engineers and technicians in the United States, as well as a site with 88 employees. He was responsible for setting the company’s strategy for its intellectual property portfolio and launched the company’s first three, mass-produced product lines. He was responsible for the fundamental material research involved with developing new technologies for batteries and ramping technologies to product launch. He held several positions within Valence Technology, including vice president of process engineering and development, as well as director of product development.
Adamson was also the senior research scientist for Zinc Air Power Corporation, a start-up company developing a commercial electric vehicle battery. In this position, Adamson directed an electrochemical research and catalyst testing program to develop a commercial bi-function air cathode. He instituted a new cathode testing program to improve manufacturing and testing controls, resulting in a 70 percent performance increase and 75 percent reduction in raw material cost per electrode.
Adamson is the holder of three U.S. Patents, with seven additional under application. He’s been published extensively, in such journals as “Journal Power Sources,” “Chemistry of Materials,” “Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters,” “Journal of Chemical Physics,” and “Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy.”
Adamson received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in Cambridge, Massachusetts in Physical Chemistry and his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California in Riverside, California.
Zinc Matrix Power was recently awarded Intel’s “Technology Innovation Accelerated” (TIA) Award in the Mobility category, presented during the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) 2006 Conference, held September 26 – 28, 2006 in San Francisco. Zinc Matrix Power won the award based upon its demonstration at IDF of a notebook computer using its new silver-zinc rechargeable battery technology.
Zinc Matrix Power’s technology contains no lithium or flammable liquids and is free from the problems of thermal runaway, fire and danger of explosion. The batteries are also free from the regulations that limit the size of lithium-containing batteries on airplanes. In addition to the intrinsic safety offered by Zinc Matrix Power cells, a notebook PC battery pack using these silver-zinc cells can be expected to provide longer run-time than equivalent Li-ion based battery packs. The combination of longer run-time, safety, and an unrestricted pack capacity (not restricted by Li-ion battery regulations for in-flight use) make Zinc Matrix Power battery cells an attractive proposition for notebook PC OEMs.
About Zinc Matrix Power
Zinc Matrix Power, Inc. develops and produces high performance rechargeable silver-zinc batteries for commercial and military markets. The company currently holds 16 key patents on rechargeable silver-zinc batteries and has demonstrated up to 2X the energy to volume of current lithium-ion batteries. The company has strategic partnerships with, and venture investments from, Intel™ Corporation, OnPoint™ Technologies--a venture capital fund of the US Army, and PowerVentures--a large private equity group.