UK battery expertise firm Anaphite has raised £1.4 million to increase its DCP dry coating expertise platform for manufacturing LFP cathodes and graphite anodes, addressing power depth challenges in battery manufacturing.
UK-based battery expertise firm Anaphite has secured £1.4 million in funding to advance its dry coating expertise for lithium-iron-phosphate battery cathodes. The financing combines £700,000 in grant funding from Innovate UK’s Investor Partnerships: Clear Vitality and Local weather Applied sciences competitors with £700,000 from climate-focused enterprise capital funds Elbow Seashore and World Fund.
The funding will allow Anaphite to increase its DCP expertise platform, which engineers homogenous dry composite powders for coating battery electrodes. The corporate plans to adapt the platform for high-throughput, high-yield manufacturing of dry coated LFP cathodes and graphite anodes.
Manufacturing LFP cathodes requires greater than twice the power per kilowatt-hour of battery cells produced in comparison with nickel-manganese-cobalt cathodes with medium-to-high nickel content material. Materials mixing and electrode coating processes account for 30 to 40 % of complete cell manufacturing power and prices, making optimization essential for decreasing each bills and carbon footprints.
With LFP projected to characterize over 55 % of world cathode demand by 2030, demand for dry coating applied sciences continues to develop. Nonetheless, no commercial-scale resolution for dry coated LFP cathodes at present exists, creating urgency as automakers face legislative deadlines together with combustion engine bans within the UK and Europe by 2030 and 2035 respectively.
“We’re thrilled to have secured this grant help from Innovate UK and the matching funding from Elbow Seashore, World Fund and different Anaphite buyers,” mentioned Joe Stevenson, Anaphite’s CEO. “This permits us to assault one of many hardest technical challenges in dry coating – efficiently manufacturing LFP electrodes. As soon as achieved at scale, it is going to be enormously invaluable to the trade.”
The technical problem stems from particle measurement variations. Present era LFP particles measure 0.7 to three microns in comparison with 3 to twenty microns for NMC, creating considerably greater floor space and complicating homogenous mixing and dry movie formation.
Anaphite’s DCP expertise makes use of proprietary chemical compositing strategies to disperse binders and conductive carbons by attaching them to energetic materials particles. Craig Douglas, Associate at World Fund, famous the expertise’s broad applicability: “Anaphite’s expertise is broadly relevant throughout next-generation and established battery applied sciences alike. This funding will allow the corporate to considerably increase its industrial capabilities.”
The challenge goals to supply dry coated LFP cathodes and graphite anodes utilizing roll-to-roll coating strategies for mass manufacturing validation.
