£7m to improve battery technology for electric vehicles

UCL, Synthomer and Nexeon have together been awarded £7million in Innovate UK funding to develop significantly better materials for Li-ion batteries. The work is an essential step to achieving electric vehicles (EVs) with a range of 400 miles and above. The project, named SUNRISE (after Synthomer, UCL & Nexeon's Rapid Improvement in the Storage of Energy), will develop better battery materials based on silicon as a replacement for carbon in the cell anode, and optimise cell designs for automotive application.  "We are delighted to be working on this project, which is so important for the future development of battery electric vehicles, and leverages the unique facilities at UCL in partnership with Nexeon and Synthomer to deliver real world research impact," said Dr Paul Shearing (UCL Chemical Engineering) who co-leads the project for UCL with Professor Dan Brett. Innovate UK will fund the majority of the £10million project as part of a Faraday Challenge. SUNRISE will also enhance the UK's position as a centre of excellence for battery development, and support the materials manufacturing supply chain in the UK. Nexeon will lead the silicon material development and scale-up stages of the SUNRISE project, while Synthomer will lead the development of a next generation polymer binder optimised to work with silicon, and ensure anode/binder cohesion during a lifetime of charges. Nexeon and UCL will jointly lead the work on material characterisation and cell performance.