- Ten-Nine Technologies’ TENIX is an “anti-aging” additive for batteries that stops the chemical decomposition which saps their power over time
- TENIX is an additive blended into a battery’s cathode material during manufacturing. It’s 0.5–2% of the cathode’s weight, and needs no new equipment or battery redesign to implement
- In third-party testing TENIX delivered over 75% more charge-discharge cycles, extending a typical EV battery’s life from 150,000 to more than 265,000 miles
- That longer life cuts the cost per kilowatt-hour by around 40%, while 10% lower resistance means faster charging and less wasted energy as heat
- TENIX can cut a battery’s heat output by around 40% over its lifetime, which is becoming increasingly critical for AI-driven data centers
- Manganese-rich cathodes – a cheaper, more sustainable alternative to nickel and cobalt that TENIX is built to enable offer a far more secure, geographically diverse supply chain
- Ten-Nine is in evaluation trials with manufacturers representing more than half of the world’s battery production volume
- Ten-Nine has raised $45 million to date, holds 67 granted patents and has no direct competitor offering a cathode additive of its kind
- Founder and CEO Paige Johnson invented the technology herself and remains the company’s sole scientific and public-facing
TULSA, Oklahoma : Ten-Nine Technologies, an advanced materials company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is scaling production of TENIX, its patented cathode additive, as the battery industry’s shift toward manganese-rich chemistries accelerates. Ten-Nine describes TENIX as “anti-aging for batteries.”
Every time batteries charge and discharge, unwanted chemical by-products build up inside them – the same process that makes your phone run hot, an EV’s range shrink, a laptop need charging more often, and power tools lose their punch.
TENIX stops that aging process at the source. It’s blended directly into a battery’s cathode material during manufacturing – taking up just 0.5–2% of its weight, or roughly 0.5–2kg for every 100kg of cathode, which is about what’s in a typical EV battery pack.
It drops into cathode production lines that manufacturers already run, so adopting it requires no new equipment and no battery redesign. At its current production capacity of 100 tons, Ten-Nine can supply enough TENIX to treat between 50,000 and 200,000 typical EV battery packs.
In third-party testing, TENIX delivered over 75% more charge-discharge cycles, extending a typical EV battery’s life from a 150,000-mile warranty baseline to more than 265,000 miles. That longer life translates into roughly 40% lower cost per kilowatt-hour delivered over a battery’s lifetime, while 10% lower internal resistance means faster charging and less energy wasted as heat.
TENIX can also cut a battery’s heat output by around 40% over its lifetime – a benefit that is becoming increasingly critical as AI-driven data centers push backup batteries harder than ever.
This momentum comes as the battery industry is increasingly shifting toward manganese-rich cathodes – a cheaper, more abundant, and more geographically secure alternative to the cobalt- and nickel-heavy chemistries that dominate EV batteries today.
Manganese-rich cathodes also offer a far more secure supply chain than the nickel- and cobalt-heavy chemistries they could replace. Manganese is mined widely across Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, rather than concentrated in a handful of countries, making it far less exposed to the geopolitical pressure points that increasingly worry battery manufacturers and policymakers alike.
Manganese-rich cathodes have also long been held back by poor cycle life, exactly the problem TENIX is built to solve. Ten-Nine believes the shift could reshape the global cathode supply chain the way LFP did twenty years ago.
Paige Johnson, Founder and CEO of Ten-Nine Technologies, said:
“Just like people, batteries age. Products of chemical decomposition build up during use, limiting a battery’s performance and lifetime, and until now that’s just been treated as an unavoidable cost of doing business. I’m a chemist so I wanted to fix that at the source rather than build a whole new battery to work around it. TENIX has a unique surface chemistry that disrupts that aging process, giving batteries more power and significantly longer life. I started this company in the back of a warehouse in Tulsa with $100,000 and four grams of material in a flask. I never imagined we’d end up here, but I always believed that if the chemistry was right, it would matter to a lot of people’s lives. That’s still what gets me up in the morning.”
Ten-Nine is currently in evaluation trials with battery manufacturers that together represent more than half of the world’s battery production volume, and is now accepting orders for 2026–27 delivery from its own production facility in Tulsa.
The company holds 67 granted patents protecting its core cathode chemistry, and has no direct competitor offering a cathode additive of its kind – the nearest points of comparison, silicon anode and solid-state electrolyte technologies, solve different problems in different parts of the battery entirely. TENIX works across battery types used in all sectors including electric vehicles, defense equipment, power tools, and grid-scale energy storage.
Ten-Nine Technologies was founded in 2014 by Paige after a local angel investor offered her $100,000 to pursue her research independently. The company’s name traces back to its original incorporation as “10-9 LLC”: 10⁻⁹ is nano, representing the scale of the surface chemistry Ten-Nine engineers; 10⁹ is a billion, representing the number of lives Paige believes better batteries can improve. That original $100,000 has since grown into $45 million raised to date, funding Ten-Nine’s transition from a lab experiment into a commercial-scale manufacturer.
