Two New Entrepreneurial Fellowships - IONETIC and Molyon

The Faraday Institution is pleased to announce it has awarded a further two Entrepreneurial Fellowships.

The Entrepreneurial Fellowship programme supports researchers across the UK looking to create new businesses and commercialise battery technologies. Fellowships receive mentoring, strategic business advice and introductions to key industry contacts. IONETIC and Molyon join 11 previous recipients of the award.

Introducing the new Fellowships:

IONETIC: Streamlining battery pack design

An exploded view of a battery pack – courtesy of IONETIC

IONETIC is developing and delivering world-leading battery technology to empower all OEMs to create exceptional electric vehicles. It is a one-stop solution for battery pack design, test, and manufacture, leveraging vertical integration and its battery platform Arc, to achieve a cost savings of up to 90% in the development of automotive battery packs. Arc, based both in software and hardware, standardises materials, geometries, and more, allowing all battery packs to share a common foundation while being tailored to the needs of the customer. Combined with a flexible manufacturing system, IONETIC aims to deliver class-leading speed and cost to market.

Its tailored design, with a core focus on electrochemical battery performance, enables each battery pack to be a different shape, size, energy, or voltage, with a focus on high energy, long life, or high performance. Its current architecture enables up to 245Wh/kg at a module level, while also being capable of racing-specification performance.

The Entrepreneurial Fellowship will help fund the further development of IONETIC’s technology, as the company builds and validates prototype battery packs based on the Arc platform. The Faraday Institution team will also provide IONETC with business advice, mentorship, access to its network, and further development of its IP strategy.

IONETIC is also leading a Faraday Battery Challenge Round 6 project, BESTBUS, in collaboration with Imperial College London and Alexander Dennis.

Molyon: Enabling high-energy and long-life lithium-sulfur batteries

Ismail Sami, a Faraday Institution Research Fellow, previously won first prize in Cambridge Enterprise’s Chris Abell Postdoc Business Plan Competition 2023

Lithium-sulfur is a lightweight battery technology of potential interest to the aerospace industries. As part of the LiSTAR project, researchers at the University of Cambridge have demonstrated the use of innovative lithiated metallic molybdenum disulfide nanosheets to increase the energy density of lithium-sulfur batteries. The team has manufactured prototype pouch cells with the highest reported volumetric energy density for this cell chemistry (735 Wh/L) that also demonstrate excellent cycling stability. The IP-protected cathode material consists of earth abundant and inexpensive raw materials. Spin-out Molyon has been set up to commercialise the technology.

The entreprenurial fellowship will help Molyon by providing salary, equipment, and consumables as the team develops the know-how and processes to scale up the manufacture of the cathode material. The Faraday Institution will also help the team develop industrial partnerships and provide business support and mentoring. The fellowship’s ultimate aim is to demonstrate the feasibility of scalable, sustainable, and economic manufacture of the material, which will enable future prototype testing with customers, bringing the team a step closer to investment-readiness.

Posted on April 18, 2024