Scale up TRials on Equipment for Production [STEP]

英国政府认为，向零排放电动汽车过渡是实现净零排放和减少大气中温室气体排放的关键因素。汽车行业已经开始应对这一挑战，为了实现到2030年不销售新的汽油和柴油汽车和货车的目标，电池驱动的电动汽车的采用大幅增加。可充电锂离子电池是目前为电动汽车提供动力的首选技术：这项技术已经成熟，在全球范围内都是千瓦时级的。虽然锂离子电池仍在不断发展，但预计该技术最终将趋于平稳，可能无法满足新型电动汽车对长距离、高加速和快速充电的长期需求。固态电池被视为锂离子电池的可能接班人：这些全固态电池不含锂离子电池中存在的液体电解质，通过简化包装、电池管理和冷却系统，在电池和电池组层面上都有可能提高功率和能量。伊利卡公司开发了一种独特的基于氧化物固体电解质和硅阳极的固态袋技术。在进行新产品开发计划的同时，该公司已经在计划未来几年将其技术产业化的方式。商业化的下一步将是Ilika扩大到100mwh级别的设施，在与其汽车目标市场相关的产量水平上运用其知识产权和专业知识，并在进一步扩大到gwh级别之前实现中间里程碑式的制造。Ilika正在与一些英国设备供应商合作，通过使用具有代表性的批量生产设备进行一系列试验，以验证其规模扩大活动，以降低其工业化计划的下一阶段的风险。

Transitioning to emission-free electric vehicles is seen by the UK government as a key contributor to achieving Net Zero and reducing the release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The automotive industry has raised to this challenge and the adoption of battery-powered electric vehicles has increased greatly in order to meet the target of no sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030\. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are the current technology of choice to power electric vehicles: this technology is mature and manufactured at GWh-level across the world. Whilst lithium-ion batteries are still evolving, it is expected that the technology will eventually plateau and may not meet the longer-term ever-increasing demand for long range, high acceleration and fast charging of new electric vehicle models. Solid-state batteries are seen as likely successors of lithium-ion batteries: these fully-solid batteries do not contain the liquid electrolyte present in lithium-ion batteries, leading to potential improvements in terms of power and energy both at cell and pack level, through simplified packaging, battery management and cooling systems.Ilika has developed a unique solid-state pouch technology, based on oxide solid electrolyte and silicon anode. Whilst carrying on its new product development program, the company is already planning ahead to the way its technology will be industrialised in the next few years. The next step towards commercialisation will see Ilika scale up to a 100 MWh-level facility, exercising its IP and know-how at a production volume level relevant to its automotive target markets and exemplifying manufacturing at an intermediate milestone before further scale up to GWh-level.Ilika is working with a number of UK based equipment vendors to validate its scale up activities by conducting a series of trials using representative volume manufacturing equipment to de risk the next phase of its industrialisation plan.