Goliath Solid State Battery Exceeds Expectations For EV Safety

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The race for the solid state EV battery of tomorrow is already crowded, and here comes yet another startup elbowing in. The UK firm Ilika has just dropped word that its new Goliath P1 prototype cells have passed a crucial safety test by failing to reach dangerously high heat when impaled by a nail.

New Solid State Battery Passes The Test

The nail test sounds crude enough but it is a foundational matter of EV battery testing. Conventional lithium-ion batteries with liquid electrolytes can catch fire when damaged. Energy storage innovators have invested many years of hard work to engineer safety systems into EV batteries, to help ensure they don’t. Fans of new solid state technology anticipate that the danger can be eliminated altogether (see more solid state background here).

“The test simulates a catastrophic incident that would typically cause energy-dense lithium-ion cells with lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (“NMC”) cathode chemistry to dangerously swell, rupture, explode, and catch fire in a process known as thermal runaway, often leading to temperatures above 600°C,” Ilika elaborates.

In the nail test, the Goliath P1 cell maintained a temperature below 80°C while displaying no signs of explosion or fire.

“These early results have exceeded our expectations in terms of cell safety,” enthused Dr. James Robinson, Lecturer in Advanced Propulsion at University College London. Dr. Robinson also leads the UK Safebatt Project, a multi-level collaboration under the umbrella of Oxford University, aimed at understanding EV battery failure and improving EV battery safety.

Where Did This New Solid State Battery Come From?

CleanTechnica has spilled plenty of ink on the advantages of solid state battery technology, including faster charging and longer range as well as improved safety. Solid state technology also provides for a leaner approach to engineering, helping to decrease weight and wedge more battery into less space.

There being no such thing as a free lunch, getting solid state batteries out of the lab and into the hands of electric vehicle makers has been a years-long process, which stands to reason considering that battery innovators are trying to make electrons fly through a solid material instead of simply swimming across a liquid.

Nevertheless, the era of the solid state EV battery is near, and Ilika is good example of the pace of development. The company spun out of research at the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton twenty years ago, back in 2004. Over the following ten years the company focused on materials development, attracting notice from Shell and Toyota among other global firms.

Ilika’s solid state journey began in 2014 with a focus on tiny batteries for medical implants and industrial devices before finally moving into the Goliath scale for EVs in 2018. That was six years ago, for those of you keeping score at home.

In a press statement regarding the newly passed nail test, Dr. Robinson indicated that the results represent early-stage testing, and there is more work to be done. However, he also observed that Ilika is on the right track. “While there is still further testing to be undertaken, there seems to be an inherent safety advantage in nail penetration tests for this cell type over conventional state-of-the-art cells,” he said.

Investors also seem to think so. “The company’s growth has been financed by three rounds of venture capital, an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange in May 2010 and three placings in April 2012, July 2018 and March 2020,” Ilika notes on its website.

The Solid State Battery Manifesto

If you’re wondering why investors are willing to wait so long for the payout, that’s a good question. One answer is Ilika’s roots in the implantable device field, which are still, well, rooted. Last year the leading Minnesota-based firm Cirtec Medical signed up for a 10-year manufacturing license to produce Ilika’s milimeter-scale batteries at its factory in Massachusetts.

The other part of the answer can be found in the case Ilika makes for conventional lithium-ion batteries to hand the torch over to solid state battery innovators.

In a sort of manifesto on the company website, Ilika notes that the performance of lithium-ion EV batteries was initially weighed against existing rechargeable technology including lead-acid and nickel–metal hydride batteries. That set a low bar to leap, but the safety issue is not going away on its own.

“Despite the many advantages of LIB [lithium-ion batteries] being clear (for example great cycle life and rapidly decreasing costs) and the technology being the battery type of choice in current electric vehicles, the technology is also stuck in everyone’s subconscious in terms of safety,” Ilika points out.

Ilika notes that the stickiness of the safety issue is a little unjustified due to the rarity of EV battery fires compared to gasoline or diesel-sparked fires, which is certainly true. Still, the best-case scenario for winning the hearts and minds of the driving public over to new automotive technology would be no fires at all.

The key challenge for conventional lithium-ion technology is the formation of dendrites, which are fern-like structures that grow the battery over time, interfering with performance and leading to short circuits. Catastrophic failure is rare because EV battery innovators have developed ways to control dendrite formation. However, Ilika is among those anticipating that new solid state battery technology will do away with the issue altogether.

Ilika does issue a caveat, noting that there is not universal agreement on the ability of a solid electrolyte to stop dendrite formation completely. However, the company notes that “promising data have been circulated to evidence that this works.”

“Based on our knowledge of solid state materials and processes, Ilika is now firmly progressing with the development of SSB cells at Wh-level for EV and consumer electronics applications,” Ilika concludes.

Next Steps For The Goliath EV Battery

If you’re expecting a scaled-up version of the company’s Stereax line of mm-scale medical and industrial batteries, guess again. The company’s new EV-worthy solid state battery is a different formula and involves different processes. Ilika describes the Goliath prototype as a solid state pouch-type cell, sporting a nickel-manganese-cobalt cathode and a silicon anode.

Hold on to your hats. While the prototype is an intermediate step leading to commercialization, Ilika has already mapped out a detailed manufacturing strategy as it carries on with the R&D phase. If  all goes according to plan, the company anticipates having mass-producible version ready to roll next year.

Ilika plans to leverage existing lithium-ion battery equipment and systems to manufacture the new battery. The next step is to deploy its own pilot facility for megawatt-scale production. Scaling up to the gigawatt size will be a matter of licensing to a manufacturer, so stay tuned for more on that.

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Image: The new Goliath prototype solid state battery from Ilika has passed a crucial safety test with flying colors, setting it up for the next-generation EV market of the future (courtesy of Ilika).