Amprius contracts South Korean battery manufacturer
Amprius says that the new partnership “represents a pivotal step in Amprius’ journey to scale its SiCore platform” and that the unnamed Korean battery maker “brings extensive experience in manufacturing advanced lithium-ion batteries across a range of form factors and cell chemistries.” South Korea is home to several battery-making giants and multiple smaller players.
In January this year, Amprius said its new SiCore cell has been designed to meet the rigorous demands of aerospace and defence applications, and that it is collaborating with leading aerospace and defence customers to prepare for commercial use of the technology. At the time, the Californian silicon anode developer said it had established a global contract manufacturing network with gigawatt-hour-scale production capacity, enabling cost-competitive delivery.
Now, with the new manufacturing partner in South Korea, the company adds this capacity to an existing 1.8 GWh of contracted production capacity. Amprius says the new capacity will enable it “to deliver at volume and compete more effectively across global markets.”
Production in South Korea with the new agreement is stated to “include a balanced SiCore cell engineered to deliver high-energy and high-power performance for an advanced drone.” The facility will manufacture SiCore silicon anode cells to Amprius’ specifications, which the company says will support both current and next-generation battery platforms “optimised for high-demand applications in aerospace, defence, and electric mobility.”
Silicon anodes have the advantage of avoiding limited graphite supplies, which are dominated by China both in the production of synthetic graphite and the processing of mined graphite. At the end of 2022, the US government funded three companies, Amprius Technologies, Group14 Technologies, and Sila Nanotechnologies build factories for silicon anode materials.
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