LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Solid-state battery technology company Ilika announced the successful conclusion of its scale-up study with partner Comau, part of automotive giant Stellantis.
The AIM-traded firm said the study reviewed its existing Goliath pre-pilot line, and delivered a plant design for a Goliath manufacturing line at a "mega-scale facility".

It said the 12-month project was supported by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), with Ilika receiving a £0.28m grant towards costs related to the project.

The company said the project had two objectives, with the first being a review and validation of Ilika's internal plan to scale-up its facility from a production capacity of 50kWh per year to 2MWh per year.

Following the review, Ilika said it had a detailed facility and equipment plan, and entered into discussions with equipment vendors, with the first long-lead equipment orders expected to be placed in the second quarter.

Ilika's 2MWh scale-up would deliver and commission a fully-operational facility by the fourth quarter of 2023, and in the meantime, the development of its Goliath solid-state battery technology was continuing to plan.

The second objective was an initial review of Ilika's defined manufacturing process to assess its suitability for megawatt scale-up.

Ilika said it concluded there were no cost or technical barriers to scale-up, with the manufacturing benefits identified including an accelerated formation stage relative to traditional lithium-ion, which could "significantly reduce" formation times.

Comau produced a high-level costed plant design for the megawatt-scale solid-state manufacturing line, which would be further refined in future planned collaborations.

"This project has successfully validated Ilika's scale-up plans for its Goliath technology, highlighting some important cost-saving benefits at higher volume production levels which pave the way to gigawatt scale manufacturing," said Ilika chief executive officer Graeme Purdy.

"Working with Comau, one of the world's leading designers of innovative engineering solutions, has delivered a robust plan to scale-up Ilika's manufacturing capability for Goliath solid-state batteries to the next level."

At 1238 BST, shares in Ilika were up 2.72% at 111.97p.

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