Dutch startup LionVolt has acquired AMTE Energy’s battery cell manufacturing line in Scotland. It says it would use the belongings for pilot manufacturing of its 3D solid-state thin-film batteries.
Eindhoven-based startup LionVolt has accomplished the acquisition of AMTE Energy’s enterprise and belongings in Scotland, together with a battery cell manufacturing line in Thurso.
Attributable to ongoing delays in securing the required funds, AMTE Energy – an Oxfordshire-based developer and producer of lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery cells – went into administration in December. Nevertheless, FRP Advisory ran an accelerated mergers and acquisitions course of and stated final week that it had accomplished the sale of the corporate’s enterprise and belongings to LionVolt.
The sale allows the battery manufacturing facility to be repurposed for producing LionVolt’s 3D know-how and consists of the switch of 20 jobs based mostly in Thurso. AMTE Energy’s remaining 15 workers in Milton, England, have been made redundant.
“The acquisition by LionVolt offered the very best alternative to safe jobs and fulfil our statutory duties to collectors,” stated Richard Bloomfield, director of FRP Advisory and the joint administrator of AMTE Energy Plc. “The transaction follows an exhaustive gross sales course of and seek for new funding. Critically, it preserves numerous jobs and gives a continuation of battery cell manufacturing in Scotland.”
For LionVolt, the acquisition of the battery manufacturing web site brings “new complementary capabilities to the corporate for its subsequent part of development.”
Sandeep Unnikrishnan, the CTO of LionVolt, described the transaction as a “dream state of affairs.”
“It helps us mature our progressive 3D battery know-how faster by leveraging the manufacturing experience from the crew in Scotland, thereby lowering time-to-market,” stated Unnikrishnan.
The acquisition comes sizzling on the heels of LionVolt’s announcement that it’s constructing a pilot manufacturing line on the Brainport Industries Campus (BIC) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
LionVolt was spun off from the Netherlands Group for Utilized Scientific Analysis (TNO) in 2020 with a mission to develop and scale its 3D solid-state thin-film battery know-how. The know-how is alleged to ship enhanced power density, superior cycle-life, increased charging velocity, and enhanced security in comparison with standard lithium-ion batteries and be notably appropriate for wearables and electrical car purposes.
LionVolt’s batteries are made by overlaying billions of pillars with skinny layers of useful materials, making a 3D construction with a really giant floor space and really quick distances between each battery electrodes. Charging and discharging occasions are diminished, because the lithium-ions solely should journey a brief distance.
The producer stated this strategy allows the know-how to beat two main hurdles to its industrial rollout – the conformal coating of the complete battery stack and the event of scalable manufacturing instruments. The creation of the micropillar arrays is reportedly capable of scale back the technological problem of conformal coating, and the open and common construction facilitates the deposition of consecutive layers.
LionVolt stated its battery configuration is totally retrofittable into present industrial codecs and a manufacturing line may be arrange in a really quick time. Nearly 80% of the availability chain wanted to construct a manufacturing line may be sourced regionally, in line with the Dutch firm.
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