The UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) in Coventry has recently enhanced its facilities with new specialist equipment for battery developers and manufacturers. This new setup includes cell cyclers and environmental chambers that allow for the continuous charging and discharging of cylindrical and pouch cells to test the lifecycle of battery cells.
Situated within a 135m² air-conditioned unit, the equipment features custom-made racking and cell fixtures designed for high-accuracy cell characterisations under various environmental conditions. The facility boasts a 15A cylindrical cell cycler with 192 channels and a 100A pouch cell cycler with 96 channels, all housed in Binder EUCAR* hazard level 6 chambers that allow for environmental control and extended lifecycle testing.
Sean Gilgunn, Managing Director at UKBIC, commented on the new capabilities: “The cell cyclers will be a huge asset to the UK battery industry, helping us become a one-stop shop for.”
Richard LeCain, Chief Technology Officer at UKBIC, also noted: “The new cyclers will help make UKBIC’s world-class scale-up facilities an even more attractive proposition to battery developers, allowing performance to be independently validated and risk to be reduced.”
These enhancements are part of a series of upgrades at UKBIC, totalling £74 million, funded through the Faraday Battery Challenge by UK Research and Innovation. Future developments include an expanded battery development laboratory set to be operational in early 2025, a clean and dry zone for customer rental, and a flexible pilot line to bridge the gap between UKBIC’s industrial scale offering and smaller-scale demonstrators, expected to open in Summer 2025.
The Faraday Battery Challenge is a £610 million investment programme designed to bolster the UK’s capacity for world-class scientific technology development and manufacturing scale-up for batteries.
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