Nexeon said that it had reached the halfway stage in its £10million SUNRISE project, and has already produced silicon battery materials that have performed better than expected. Samples are now with potential customers for evaluation, and initial feedback has been very positive.
According to the company SUNRISE project is on target to develop materials based on silicon as a replacement for carbon in the cell anode, and optimising cell designs for specific applications.
Silicon-enhanced batteries with longer life and higher energy density will be of benefit in consumer electronics products and static energy storage applications.
A prototype reactor has been built and is operational, and progress has been made to ramp up production capability.
The work is supported by £7million in Innovate UK funding, and the other partners in the project are polymer company Synthomer and UCL.
“The excellent progress we have been making in this project has enabled us to accelerate scale-up ahead of our original plan”, said Dr Scott Brown, CEO of Nexeon. “We are very pleased with the support we have received from Innovate UK, as well as from UK and global OEMs, and we are eagerly awaiting additional feedback from the evaluation of materials produced.”