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https://thedriven.io/2024/12/20/we-can-make-lighter-batteries-australia-start-up-gets-funding-for-new-facility/>
"Australian battery development company Gelion has been awarded $4.8m in
funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to develop a prototyping
facility for its sulphur-based chemistries that promise lighter batteries and
longer range for EVs.
The funding will contribute to building the $9.6 million Advanced Commercial
Prototyping Facility that will produce 2000 battery cells a year to help the
company develop advanced chemistries that promise lighter batteries capable of
allowing EVs to travel further.
Though not capable of producing at the scale of a Gigafactory, the facility
will produce small-batches of cells at the same quality to quickly develop
designs and to allow prospective customers to investigate how the batteries
could be incorporated into their own manufacturing process.
Gelion CEO John Wood said that before the facility, the company was forced to
develop cells to a certain point before sending them to Germany to complete the
process, forcing it to wait months.
“Now we can just walk downstairs,” Wood said. “The whole process is much more
difficult when you have to send outside to do your fabrication and you can’t
iterate as fast.”
“At some stage you have to step up and have capabilities like this.”
The company, a University of Sydney spin off, was founded in 2015 to develop
next-generation battery technology from research initially conducted by
Professor Thomas Maschmeyer.
Unlike common lithium-ion battery technologies, that currently rely on a
process known as “intercalation”, Gelion’s current work has focussed on
developing lithium-sulphur and silicon-sulphur batteries.
These rely upon sulfur-conversation cathode technology where the carrier ions
move across to the cathode and react with the sulfur in the cathode.
As sulfur is a common material widespread across the globe, these battery
chemistries could make manufacturing processes easier and ease geopolitical
tensions often associated with scarce critical resources such as cobalt and
oil. They also offer higher densities, meaning they store more energy per unit
of weight.
“That’s sort of a long way of saying you can make lighter batteries,” Wood
said.
Lighter batteries mean electric vehicles could travel further and have less
impact on the environment through wear on wheels, but could also make it
possible to develop forms of electric aviation."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
