The UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) is expanding its service offering to fill a demand gap in the market designed for growing companies. They are past university lab stage but not yet able to provide all their own testing equipment. Andrew Draper met with CEO Sean Gilgunn and centre staff to find out more.
The new industrial scale-up line at UKBIC is designed to bridge the gap between R&D and mass production. It already had a small gigafactory line to help companies scaling at that level, Gilgunn said. “What we didn’t have was the additional funds to be able to go a bit lower: From the scale journey to be able to give those smaller companies a foot up somewhere to work at a lower scale so that they can move quicker.”
He said from a materials science perspective, if you’re a small start-up with only a few kilos of your cathode material, you need a lot more to be able to go on a gigafactory line. “So that’s why we’re putting in the flexible pilot line.”
He talks of companies being on journeys. Their travels may mean they bring their chemicals to UKBIC to take advantage of mixing equipment and take it all the way to electrode manufacture. Calendering and slitting, pouch or cylindrical cell manufacture, with a range of testing etc. are all part of the offering. Expert technicians rooted in the battery industry are on hand and work with clients to ensure they get the most from their time at the centre.
UKBIC is located in Coventry in the English West Midlands, a stone’s throw from the heart of the UK’s automotive industry. Gilgunn joined as managing director last October after 25 years in management at Johnson Matthey. In August, it appointed Richard LeCain as its new chief technology officer. He brings two decades of practical industrial experience to the role. He joins UKBIC’s executive team with responsibility for technical process design, product development and R&D activities.
Giving access
Moving from working with kilos of material to hundreds of kilos is a big jump, said Gilgunn. “And if you’re a big player, you have the material and the revenues to be able to justify that sort of investment. But if you’re a small scale-up spin off, it’s difficult to work at that level. So what we are doing now is putting in the flexible pipeline.”
The testing equipment needed for the hundreds of kilos level costs tens of thousands of pounds (£1 = $1.30) in material, he said. “What we want to do is give access to a line where you work at the tens of kilos. So again, it’s that jump from university level to that interim level. So we’ll be doing prototype work at kilo level. They’ll then be doing pilot level on the flexible pilot line and then moving to scale.”
UKBIC secured £38 million ($48 million) in government funding last year to pay for its scale-up. It adds to the £36 million ($46 million) already committed in May by the Faraday Battery Challenge, a £610 million ($770 million) governmental investment programme.
Flexibility
The clue is in the flexible pilot line name, Gilgunn said, in how the centre approaches customer needs. If a client wants to develop a cathode or anode material and use the mixing equipment, they can do that. They might come back and do some electro trials to see if they have progressed, and so they gain access to that relevant equipment.
Gilgunn said interest is coming from customers wanting to do singular, smaller batches and leave, and from others wanting to do multiple batches in different iterations. The latter group wants to do its testing in situ, take the work away with the testing, evaluate, and then come back and maybe do bigger mixes and then electrodes. “So we’re already talking to companies about very flexible ways of working,” he added.
UKBIC users typically use the facilities for 1–2 weeks at a time, he said. Three is not unusual if working on a more complicated range of mixes and batches. The new line is due to open in spring 2025 and should be fully commissioned by June.
As UKBIC is ultimately funded by the UK government, the target client base is UK companies, though Gilgunn said it is open to companies abroad. He claims not many facilities can match UKBIC’s range of testing and development equipment.
He said the main focus is on classic lithium-ion batteries, with interest from larger battery production companies to the very smallest spin-offs who have been around for a couple of years.
Foreign IP
The centre is highly protective of its sensitive equipment (it is paid for out of public funds) and carefully screens what it allows through its doors. “Well, they have to share everything with us,” he said. “Again, depending on where they are on the journey. We are obviously at a safe site. This is not just some research level coming and doing anything they want. We have to see the data sheets. We need to know what materials are coming through to keep our people safe, and also to keep their people safe because they’re working hand in hand with us.
“We don’t do contract manufacturing where we give them a quote and they come back in a month to get their material. Their engineers are in on the line with us, and we have to know that we can handle their materials safely. Now, some companies are far more protective than others. Others just want to move quickly and they’re happy to be open.”
Having material scientists, electrochemical engineers and product engineering means it is in the customer’s interest to explain what they are doing and the help they need to do with materials, electrodes or cells. UKBIC never hands over the keys and always retains clarity about customer objectives.
Because every project is different – also in terms of chemistry – the company takes great care to strip down and clean equipment between projects.
Does it ever have surprises? “Yes, constantly,” he laughs. They rarely get a you-must-be-joking project proposal, but are often presented with materials at an early level of maturity and not tested and validated. It might not be well aligned and may telescope during production. “But this is what we help those companies with and do. So they can go back to their suppliers and say, ‘right, here’s the expectation. If you can, if we’re going to work with you, here’s what you need to be doing.”
