Platinum Group Metals Ltd. reports that Lion Battery Technologies Inc. (“Lion“) has engaged The Battery Innovation Center (“BIC“) in Newberry, Indiana to help drive commercialization of its next generation platinum and palladium based battery chemistries. Lion is advancing both proprietary lithium-sulfur and enhanced lithium-ion (NMC) technology using the unique catalytic properties of platinum and palladium.
The BIC is a collaborative initiative designed to partner with commercial enterprises, renowned universities, government agencies, and industry leaders to focus on the rapid development, testing, and commercialization of safe, reliable, and lightweight energy storage systems for commercial and defense customers. The BIC’s mission is to accelerate innovation in the field of battery technology by providing access to the entire spectrum of R&D to commercialization, including low volume production, in a single 40,000 square foot facility. The BIC reports working with a wide array of clients including Solid Power, BrightVolt, Fisker, Rolls Royce, DuPont, Valvoline, LG Chem, UL Solutions, GE Global Research, Cummins, Semplastics, and Alkegen.
Under an agreed scope of work, the BIC is to conduct independent small scale and large scale trials to validate Lion’s proprietary platinum and palladium based electrode composition, slurry, and films in both lithium-sulfur and lithium-ion (NMC811) coin and pouch cells. Collaboration with BIC will also include additional research and development focused on improving performance and scale-up with the goal of creating prototypes for commercialization consideration in 2024. Lion’s target is to develop batteries with specific energies that are 20% to 100% higher than current technologies while meeting or exceeding their present cycle lives.
Research at Lion is led by Dr. Bilal El-Zahab, who completed his post-doctoral work at MIT, along with a team that includes battery and materials science specialist and postdoctoral fellows at Florida International University (“FIU“). Dr. El-Zahab stated, “After an exhaustive search for a commercialization partner we are excited to engage with The Battery Innovation Center. The resources and team at the BIC will assist in validating several years of internal research and development and will help to lay the foundation for commercialization efforts going forward.”
“At The Battery Innovation Center, we are excited to collaborate with Dr. El-Zahab and support the endeavor for next generation lithium-related battery chemistries toward higher technology readiness levels,” says Dr. Wan Si Tang, the Advanced Battery Manufacturing Team Leader at the BIC. She continues, “We expect this valuable relationship with Lion will continue to fortify through our collaboration to combine Lion’s technologies with BIC’s scale-up expertise. This intent will ensure the proper development of prototype cells for the next stage of pilot manufacturing.”
Lion was jointly formed in 2019 by Platinum Group and Anglo American Platinum to accelerate the development of next-generation battery technology using platinum and palladium. Since inception the Lion team has focused on the development of proprietary lithium sulfur technology and enhancing the performance of existing commercial lithium-ion (NMC) chemistries. Lion has a sponsored research agreement with FIU including exclusive rights to all intellectual property developed and will lead commercialization efforts. To date the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted FIU five patents. For more details about Lion please see the Company’s most recent Form 40-F annual report, AIF and other filings with the SEC and Canadian securities regulators.