£12 million to deliver UK’s national battery materials scale up facility
The faraday battery challenge (FBC) has awarded the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult £12 million to deliver the facility through its centres. The HVM Catapult’s centres are:
- Centre for Process Innovation (CPI)
- Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), University of Warwick.
FBC is enhancing battery scale-up support in the UK with a new facility that will give companies access to state-of-the-art materials synthesis and processing equipment. This is part of a co-investment strategy between the FBC and the HVM Catapult.
FBC and the HVM Catapult are aligned to a common strategic vision for the UK battery scale up ecosystem to support the development of a battery supply chain in the UK.
The Advanced Materials Battery Industrialisation Centre (AMBIC), which will be delivered by the HVM Catapult, will provide innovation capability for the synthesis and processing of immediate and next generation battery materials.
Growing capability
It adds to the growing open-access scale up capability being delivered by the FBC which includes the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and it’s new Flexible Industrialisation Line. The £12 million facility will be delivered by CPI and WMG, two of HVM Catapult’s seven centres of innovation.
CPI’s expertise in chemicals processing and WMG’s cell development capabilities will be brought together. This will allow companies and researchers to scale their innovations from the laboratory to commercially relevant scale and enable ‘powder to cell’ support.
AMBIC benefits
The benefits of AMBIC are to:
- bring together scalable, commercially relevant equipment into one facility to fast-track battery materials development
- help stimulate and grow the chemical and materials supply chain to collaborate and invest in the UK, leading to economic growth and jobs, and attract inward investment
- align existing cell manufacturing and validation facilities and supporting the wider UK scale-up ecosystem
- have the flexibility to accommodate equipment supplier trials
- enable rapid, cost-effective product and process design
- enable the provision of a skills and training programme complementary to the National Electrification Skills Framework and Forum and other skills activities being supported by the FBC.
De-risk and accelerate scale up
Thomas Bartlett, Deputy Director of FBC, said: “AMBIC will bring together two emerging regions of battery innovation and manufacturing; the North-East and Midlands, under one facility to de-risk and accelerate battery materials scale up in the UK.
“Through the Faraday Battery Challenge’s £12 million investment in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult we will establish a truly world-class facility to support the growth of a battery materials supply chain.
“With AMBIC and previous investments in cell, module and pack scale-up at in UKBIC and R&D in the wider ecosystem, the UK will now be in a position to support businesses from ‘powder to pack’ and from lab to commercial scales.”
Combining our collective expertise
Katherine Bennett, CEO of the HVM Catapult, said: “The next generation of battery technologies are critical to the green energy transition and a major opportunity for UK manufacturing. Realising that potential will require combining our collective expertise and this investment from the Faraday Battery Challenge is a brilliant example of that in action.
“In CPI and WMG, the Advanced Materials Battery Industrialisation Centre has two centres that are at the very forefront of chemical processing and battery cell development; together they can turbo charge battery materials scale-up.”
Companies working on innovative batteries solutions, are invited to get in touch to find out how they can benefit from the new centre. Please email keri.goodwin@uk-cpi.com
