Production of US-based lithium-ion battery cells is set to begin next month at Imperium 3 New York’s (iM3NY) gigafactory.
The company, majority owned by Magnis along with its joint venture and technology partner Charge CCCV (C4V), expects initial production of “several thousand cells” to start next month before ramping up to 1GW next year.
Future plans include increasing the annual capacity of the plant based in Endicott, New York to 15,000 cells/day up (an annual production rate of 1.8GWh) and eventually 38GWh by 2030.
The first few weeks of production will be to test cells for quality assurance before first revenues, expected in late September.
Battery technology
The cell technology contains lithium mixed-metal phosphate (lmp) with biomineralisation to yield BMLMP.
The BMLMP chemistry and prismatic cell design is licensed and patented by C4V; results from tests on an un-optimised commercial-size cell released by the firm in 2020 suggested its cells can charge in six minutes and discharge in one hour while also lasting 650 cycles.
The battery technology enables the lithium-ion cells to reach 3.9 volts.
The chemistry incorporates traditional electrolyte along with a patented mixed metal phosphate composition in the cathode; notably there is no cobalt or nickel in this cell.
In June 2021, iM3NY announced it had made its first full sized, lithium-ion prismatic cells which were due to undergo limited testing and customer sampling in Q3 of last year.
The first cells were produced using manual settings to refine the product design for future automated production.
First New York lithium-ion cells made as consortium eyes 45GWh global capacity
