UK firm Faradion has received £3.2 million in funding to take its sodium-ion technology from the laboratory to large-scale prototype stage.
The money came from a syndicated funding round from existing shareholders including Mercia Technologies, which is due to invest £1.9million for a more than 13% share of the business.
Francis Massin, chief executive of Faradion, told BBB the company anticipates having pre-production cells available in the second half of this year.
Faradion’s sodium-ion cells can be produced in large quantities on the same manufacturing lines as those used for existing lithium-ion cell lines and exhibit similar performance to LiFePO4 batteries in terms of energy density and cycle life, Massin said.
He added: “Faradion is at a cross roads in its research and development, having proved and verified in the laboratory that Na-ion technology can deliver these advantages.
“We now need to produce high capacity cells in larger quantities so that samples can be provided to the market.
“For the last nine months, we have been working with industrial partners in the UK (AGM Batteries) and Asia to scale-up the technology. Scaling-up of any technology is always a challenge and requires some significant effort to control all the variables of the process.
“In 2016, our industrial partner who provides the cathode active material successfully scaled-up their production process, making consistent high quality material that meets Faradion’s specifications. This has enabled us to move into large manufacturing runs of electrode coatings.”
Earlier this year Faradion announced the appointment of Jason Hinde as Engineering Director.
Hinde previously developed lithium-ion cylindrical and pouch cells at Technology Batteries in Oxfordshire, UK.
He has also been the technical manager of AGM Batteries and the technical director of materials development company Fife Batteries Ltd.
