Anaphite secures £1.4 million to accelerate development of dry coating technology

The funding combines a £700,000 grant from the Innovate UK Investor Partnerships: Clean Energy and Climate Technologies competition with a matched £700,000 investment from climate-focused venture funds Elbow Beach and World Fund.

This support will allow the company to expand its DCP® technology platform, which currently engineers homogenous dry composite powders for dry coated NMC cathodes, so it can also deliver high-throughput, high-yield production of dry coated LFP cathodes and graphite anodes.

LFP cathodes require more than double the energy per kilowatt hour of battery cells produced compared with NMC cathodes that contain medium to high levels of nickel. Since material mixing and electrode coating make up about 30 to 40 per cent of total manufacturing energy and cost, improving these processes offers a direct path to meaningful reductions in cost and carbon footprint for battery cell producers and electric vehicle manufacturers.

Forecasts suggest LFP will account for more than 55 per cent of global cathode demand by 2031, which is driving strong interest in technologies that enable dry coating of LFP cathodes. Yet producing dry coated LFP at commercial scale remains more complex than with NMC, and no proven mass production technology exists today. With vehicle manufacturers needing to meet rising consumer expectations and comply with upcoming bans on combustion engine vehicles in the UK and Europe from 2030 and 2035, demand for a scalable solution is acute.

CEO Joe Stevenson says: “We’re thrilled to have secured this grant support from Innovate UK and the matching investment from Elbow Beach, World Fund and other Anaphite investors. This enables us to attack one of the toughest technical challenges in dry coating – successfully manufacturing LFP electrodes. Once achieved at scale, it will be enormously valuable to the industry. Anaphite’s DCP® technology has been successful with NMC dry coating formulations, and we’re confident it can be applied to LFP, to further boost the cost and carbon emission savings for OEMs.”

Craig Douglas, Partner at World Fund comments: “Anaphite’s technology is broadly applicable across next-generation and established battery technologies alike. This investment will enable the company to significantly expand its commercial capabilities, accelerating the scale-up of its manufacturing processes and driving down manufacturing costs for the global battery industry.”

Jonathan Pollock, CEO at Elbow Beach concludes:“The future of driving is electric, so scaling up affordable, low-carbon battery manufacturing is essential. Anaphite’s technology has the potential to significantly cut both costs and carbon footprint for battery makers and EV manufacturers, and we’re excited to support them as they lead the way in this critical sector.”

News Source: https://anaphite.com/