Lilium and Livent to Advance R&D for High-Performance Lithium Batteries

Lil­i­um and Livent, one of the world’s lead­ing pro­duc­ers of high-per­for­mance lithi­um bat­tery cells, have announced a research and devel­op­ment (R&D) col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Livent, a pio­neer in lithi­um tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion and pro­duc­tion for near­ly eighty years, is described by Lil­i­um as an impor­tant step towards secur­ing its future access to high-per­for­mance bat­tery cell tech­nol­o­gy that will pow­er Lilium’s jets.

Livent sup­plies lithi­um to many of the world’s pre­mier elec­tric vehi­cle brands and bat­tery mak­ers, using its dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed tech­nol­o­gy process­es to both source raw lithi­um and man­u­fac­ture a range of spe­cial­ty lithi­um prod­ucts in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble, safe and sus­tain­able man­ner.

Lil­i­um chief oper­at­ing offi­cer Yves Yem­si said: “This col­lab­o­ra­tion is a mile­stone in Lilium’s com­mit­ment to rev­o­lu­tionise region­al air trav­el.

“Inno­va­tion is at the heart of our mis­sion, and to keep inno­vat­ing we need to col­lab­o­rate with the best in the indus­try, so Livent’s unique exper­tise in lithi­um pro­duc­tion, as well as their com­mit­ment to sus­tain­ably respon­si­ble prac­tices, makes them an ide­al part­ner.”

Livent direc­tor of R&D and new busi­ness devel­op­ment Mari­na Yakovl­e­va, said: “The Livent R&D team is excit­ed about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with lead­ing sci­en­tists and engi­neers at Lil­i­um to advance e‑mobility and bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy.

“Inno­va­tion is in the DNA of both com­pa­nies, as is a shared com­mit­ment to advanc­ing elec­tric trans­porta­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty solu­tions. Togeth­er, we hope to dri­ve mean­ing­ful progress in real­iz­ing the poten­tial of next gen­er­a­tion bat­tery tech­nolo­gies and decar­bon­is­ing air trav­el.”

In July 2021, Lil­i­um part­nered with Cus­tom­cells to man­u­fac­ture lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies at its facil­i­ty in Tübin­gen in Ger­many for its sev­en-seater eVTOL air­craft ahead of a planned com­mer­cial launch in 2024.

The pre­vi­ous day, Joby Avi­a­tion flew a full-size pro­to­type of its eVTOL air­craft more than 150 miles on a sin­gle charge, using com­mer­cial­ly avail­able lithi­um ion bat­ter­ies adapt­ed for aero­space use.