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Amprius reveals its newest lithium-ion battery cell, with key power advantages for electric aviation

Amprius Tech­nolo­gies has shared more details of its newest ultra-high-pow­er-high-ener­gy lithi­um-ion bat­tery, which it claims can help extend the flight range of an eVTOL air­craft by as much as 50 per cent.

Lever­ag­ing the company’s advanced mate­r­i­al sys­tem capa­bil­i­ty, the cell achieves a dis­charge rate of 10C while deliv­er­ing 400 Wh/kg ener­gy den­si­ty, a major advance­ment for elec­tric avi­a­tion encom­pass­ing both crewed and uncrewed aer­i­al sys­tems.

Amprius says the cell’s pow­er out­put can bring unprece­dent­ed ben­e­fits to the eVTOL and UAV indus­tries, pro­vid­ing unmatched propul­sion pow­er and ener­gy to meet the rig­or­ous demands dur­ing take­off, cruise, and land­ing. The com­pa­ny has even said the prod­uct can help increase pay­load capac­i­ty.

Dr. Kang Sun, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Amprius, said: “Com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties in elec­tric mobil­i­ty are pro­found­ly impact­ed by their pow­er and ener­gy require­ments. Our new cell deliv­ers impres­sive spe­cif­ic pow­er and ener­gy den­si­ty per­for­mance, approx­i­mate­ly 200% high­er than tra­di­tion­al graphite cells, while achiev­ing a 10C dis­charge rate, sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand­ing appli­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties and dri­ving cost effec­tive­ness.”

With an impres­sive pow­er den­si­ty of 3500 W/kg in stan­dard dis­charge con­di­tions and a max­i­mum pow­er exceed­ing 4400 W/kg at low­er depths-of-dis­charge, the cel­l’s usable dis­charge capa­bil­i­ty is extend­ed. It sup­ports high cur­rent puls­es at low states of charge with­out going below the low­er cut-off volt­age, name­ly 3000 W/kg at 30% depths-of-dis­charge.

The com­bi­na­tion of high ener­gy den­si­ty and high-pow­er den­si­ty reduces bat­tery weight and vol­ume, lead­ing to extend­ed range, reduced charg­ing fre­quen­cy, and low­er oper­at­ing costs. In addi­tion, the new ultra-high-pow­er cell boasts an ultra-fast charg­ing (UFC) capa­bil­i­ty, reach­ing 80 per­cent charge in approx­i­mate­ly six min­utes or less, trans­form­ing mis­sion-crit­i­cal oper­a­tions with swift turn­around times.

Amprius remains ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing bat­ter­ies that are a key com­po­nent required to advance elec­tric mobil­i­ty. Amprius expects to have sam­ples of this cell avail­able for cus­tomers by the end of 2023 with the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the new cells slat­ed for ear­ly 2024.

The company’s cor­po­rate head­quar­ters is in Fre­mont, Cal­i­for­nia, where it main­tains an R&D lab and a pilot man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty for the fab­ri­ca­tion of sil­i­con anodes and cells. To serve cus­tomer demand, Amprius recent­ly entered into a lease agree­ment for an approx­i­mate­ly 774,000 sq. ft. facil­i­ty in Brighton, Col­orado.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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