Chunmei Ban

Associate Professor Chunmei Ban is a co-founder of CU Boulder spinout Mana Battery. The company is at the forefront of a race to provide low-cost batteries with longer lifespans than the market offers today.

CU Boulder is a hub for sustainable entrepreneurship. Spinouts such as Associate Professor Greg Rieker's LongPath Technologies, Professor Se-Hee Lee's Solid Power and Associate Professor Chunmei Ban's Mana Battery are just some of the university's latest successful ventures motivated by protecting the environment.

From July 2023 to June 2024, CU Boulder helped to launch 35 new companies based on research at the university—a big tick up from the previous record of 20 companies in fiscal year 2021. Three of these startups were spun by ME professors Chunmei Ban, Gregory Whiting and Svenja Knappe. Take a look at how our faculty are using discoveries from the lab to make a difference in peoples’ lives.

Associate Professor Chunmei Ban and her research team are exploring the use of sodium-ion batteries as an alternative to lithium-based energy storage. Sodium is widely distributed in the Earth's crust and is an appealing candidate to remedy concerns over resource scarcity with lithium-ion batteries.