Powering Britain's
Battery Revolution
Powering Britain's
Battery Revolution
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.
Image: Dr Amponsah Kyeremateng with Ampoxe’s pouch cells.
Introducing the new Fellowships:
Ampoxe is developing a chemistry-agnostic solid-state battery cell technology. Its patent-pending SMSB® (solid-molten-state battery) offers room-temperature operation but requires intermittent heating to melt certain solid-state electrolyte additives, reestablishing ideal interfaces for optimum performance. The ambition is to overcome the challenges hindering the commercialisation of solid-state batteries namely voids and dendrite formation, and so unlock the considerable performance and safety benefits of true solid-state batteries.
Building on the progress made during a project funded by the Henry Royce Institute, the Entrepreneurial Fellowship will allow the company to mature the cell technology for OEM engagements. In addition, a techno-economic analysis will be carried out to support a pre-seed funding round.
Dr Amponsah Kyeremateng with Ampoxe’s pouch cells.
MetCycle, a spin-out opportunity from the University of Cambridge, is developing a patented, sustainable, zero-waste process to recover metals from lithium-ion batteries at end-of-life. Building on Royce MatCelerateZero funding, the project has demonstrated 99% recovery of lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese from a variety of purified cathodes and trials on small quantities of commercial mixed black mass suggest commercial viability. The process is continuous and closed loop, operates at room temperature and does not use sacrificial agents – reducing energy use and simplifying operations relative to existing hydrometallurgical recycling technologies. As such it has the potential to be a low-cost solution for scalable, low-impact recovery of critical cathode metals.
During the Entrepreneurial Fellowship the team will develop a kilogram-capable demonstrator. They will complete systematic testing on a range of black-mass grades to quantify recovery rates and isolate and extract each metal salt individually. They will also conduct process optimisation, techno-economic analysis, and engage with potential industry partners for access to black mass, and assess pilot trials and commercial pathways.
Dr Esther Grey in the lab.
E-Rebat, a planned spinout from Imperial College London, led by Dr Xiaochu Wei, is developing an electro-recycling system to recover critical materials such as lithium, nickel, manganese, copper, and cobalt from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. The patent-pending technology operates in a water-based environment near ambient temperature. The process uses controlled electrochemical reactions to deposit metals sequentially as high-purity metal products or alloys. This stepwise approach avoids the need for costly pre-sorting, is compatible with mixed feedstocks, and provides a platform adaptable to future chemistries such as sodium-ion batteries. Preliminary economic assessments at lab scale indicate high value yields and significant reductions in operating costs relative to existing hydrometallurgical approaches. By producing battery-grade outputs, E-Rebat has the long-term potential to support the development of a resilient UK critical minerals and battery supply chain.
The Entrepreneurial Fellowship will allow the all-female E-Rebat team to scale the technology to pre-commercial level, expand validation with industrial waste, and accelerate commercialisation through stakeholder engagement, conduct techno-economic and life-cycle analysis, and support spin-out formation.
E-Rebat’s Dr Xiaochu Wei
Posted on September 4, 2026