Nexus Power achieves sustainable battery manufacturing, fueled by plants

As a country, India is famous for the early adoption of technology and is home to revolutions in programming and green tech. India has a history of working toward greener transportation solutions through forward-thinking policies and programs at the state level. As India accelerates towards electric vehicle adoption, the need for environmentally responsible battery solutions has become urgent. Enter identical twin sisters Nishita and Nikita Baliarsingh, founders of Nexus Power, a startup that’s taking on the problem of sustainable battery manufacturing.

The duo first became interested in quantitative sustainability metrics like ESG matrix frameworks while studying at university. They were looking for ways to reverse environmental problems from industrialization and human activity in general, and a confluence of events put them on the path of creating an exciting new battery technology.

The first of these events was an auto show in Delhi, where Nikita Baliarsingh says they realized how many electrical components of modern cars end up as e-waste. They decided to focus on one of the most damaging and wasteful elements in the process: batteries. “We started doing research in materials which are electrochemically charged and can therefore work as batteries, but aren’t as harmful as lithium,” Baliarsingh says.

The breakthrough came from a line in a research paper, suggesting certain proteins could serve as effective battery electrolytes. Their first efforts were homemade, built during COVID lockdowns out of chickpeas and kidney beans, producing outputs of up to five volts—an impressive result from something “so raw and so basic and so abundantly available in Indian households,” Baliarsingh says. “We collected some crop residue, extracted our proteins out of it and then made a new generation of batteries very successfully.”

What began as a curiosity evolved into a scalable solution. At the time, news reports began focusing on deteriorating air quality due to the widescale practice of burning crop stubble on farms. When crops are harvested, plants are almost always cut off low to the ground rather than uprooted entirely. This leaves fields full of cut-off vegetation (stubble) that needs to be cleared before the next planting, and burning is one of the most common methods used across the developing world.

But in the most populous country on Earth, crop stubble means one thing to Nexus Power: a virtually endless source of raw material. “As far as our calculations go, it’s something that’s never going to be out of stock,” Baliarsingh says. India’s vast crop stubble could be converted into high-performance battery materials. This not only reduces harmful emissions but also creates a sustainable input loop.

If agricultural waste can be used to produce biomaterials for batteries, it’s possible to save millions of tons from being burnt, funneling it instead into a new sustainable product cycle. This process is also transportable—research or production units can be set up wherever the protein-rich raw input is available, which is almost everywhere.

More importantly, it doesn’t change the way batteries are made. “The layering and crimping is the same. We synthesize the proteins and then build the entire anode and cathode slurry. That slurry then goes into existing machines or equipment and it’s fabricated using the normal process. Everything else remains the same,” Baliarsingh says.

Being able to transpose protein-based inputs into existing or entrenched battery manufacturing infrastructure is crucial for environmental and business sustainability—businesses are unwilling to spend large sums to completely retool a manufacturing process, nor would consumers pay orders of magnitude more for the resulting batteries.

The Baliarsingh sisters also relied on the ability to use existing infrastructure to help them craft a compelling business case for partners. “Being a startup, you don’t have a lot of funds to set up new manufacturing units,” Baliarsingh says. “So we had to adjust to the available infrastructure.”

In addition to being made from waste materials, Nexus Power’s batteries are completely biodegradable: when the cathode/anode/mixture structure is out of charge, it’s still essentially just old leaf and plant matter. Once separated from the plastic casing or metal wiring, it can simply be thrown in the compost.

Baliarsingh adds that Nexus Power’s batteries are performing better than the lead-acid, lithium ion, or even alternative chemistries that are becoming more widespread. Because the energy density of the agricultural slurry is higher, she says it performs up to 25% better than comparably sized batteries of other types—and at a lower price, thanks to the plentiful and inexpensive input material.

Though Nexus Power has the means to lead the field on performance and cost, the Baliarsinghs believe the focus on sustainability is the biggest selling point and what makes the company unique.

With demand for electric vehicles and energy storage skyrocketing worldwide, Nexus Power has the potential to make waves globally. Many tools that have become ubiquitous in daily life contain batteries, from EVs and drones to laptops, phones, and other consumer electronics. Even power system grid storage runs on them. “EVs are sunrise industries,” Baliarsingh says, “so changing components or elements in these industries is easier to do through trials and tests.”

Nexus Power received initial support from KIIT-Technology Business Incubator (KIIT-TBI), a non-profit incubator at KIIT University in Odisha that has helped over 450 startups in electronics, AR/VR, biotechnology, and medical technology. “The TBI believed in our idea early on and supports young women entrepreneurs like us with the right infrastructure,” Baliarsingh says. KIIT-TBI facilitated government grants for Nexus and provided material synthesis machines, electrochemical testing, and 3D modeling and printing access.

After several years of research and development funded by grants from the government of India and equity investors, Nexus Power is now preparing for a commercial rollout within a year. The company is running large-scale trials to align its technology and product roadmap with the target Mobility and Stationery markets. The results of these trials will inform a pilot manufacturing plant with a capacity of approximately 100 MWh to support broader test deployment in EVs, drones, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) applications. Over six months, Nexus will conduct rigorous testing and begin certifications, aiming to scale production to 1 GWh within 10–12 months.

“We’re trying to build the thesis and the market’s conviction about the product,” Baliarsingh says. “It’s going to be a transition from available infrastructure to batteries with a different chemistry, so the plan is to have enough pedigree to make sure buyers are readily available and open to accepting the change.”

Autodesk has been a critical partner for the company throughout its growth. Nexus Power has used Autodesk Fusion and AutoCAD software to create detailed battery designs, run simulation tests, and create prototypes. “We 3D printed all our initial prototypes, a workflow that was managed through Fusion,” Baliarsingh says. Fusion’s integration of CAD and CAM made it possible to develop designs, test layering options, and prepare files for printing in one software environment. “Using 3D printing really informed all the layers and cuts of our designs. The software became our most trusted tool in designing an entire battery pack.”

The Nexus Power team opted to 3D print the prototypes for three reasons. First, the cell types and shapes they wanted to use for initial testing weren’t available, and they didn’t have access to the traditional machine milling needed to fabricate them. Second, the non-profit incubator KIIT-TBI had a 3D printer workflow set up and available for the company’s use.

Last was the speed and agility. “3D printing helps build multiple prototypes really fast,” Baliarsingh says. “It took us maybe two or three days to build one entire battery pack—if we had to use metal fabrication, it would take a lot longer. 3D printing material is also lightweight, but it provides all the strength and support of metal fabrication.”

In an industry still largely dominated by men, Nexus Power stands out as an example of women-led innovation in tech. Founders Nikita and Nishita are MBA graduates, with Nishita also holding a degree in accounting, bringing a mix of business and financial acumen to the venture.

Despite growing representation, gender bias remains a quiet but persistent barrier as women in technology still encounter skepticism and challenges. Nexus Power’s momentum and success are an example of young women making waves in technology fields—which are still quite few and far between. Baliarsingh says that while things are changing rapidly in terms of gender equality, there’s still a long way to go.