Anaphite secures £1.4m to advance dry electrode coating for EV batteries
The financing comprises £700,000 in grant funding from the Innovate UK Investor Partnerships: Clean Energy and Climate Technologies competition, matched by £700,000 in aligned private investment from climate-focused venture capital funds Elbow Beach and World Fund. Anaphite will use the capital to further develop and scale its Dry Coating Precursor (DCP) technology platform.The company has developed a manufacturing process that applies battery materials without the use of solvents or energy-intensive drying stages, with the aim of cutting both production costs and carbon emissions. The company previously said that coating battery anodes with Anaphite technology has the potential to save around 15 per cent of production space.LFP cathodes and graphite anodes form the two electrodes within a lithium-ion battery that enable the storage and release of energy. The cathode largely defines a battery’s chemistry and performance characteristics, while the anode typically acts as the host structure for lithium ions during charging and discharging.Anaphite has highlighted electrode mixing and coating as critical steps in cell production, accounting for an estimated 30 to 40 per cent of total battery manufacturing energy use and cost. The company sees optimisation of these processes as a route to significant efficiency gains for battery cell manufacturers and electric vehicle OEMs, particularly as LFP cathodes are currently more than twice as energy-intensive to manufacture per kilowatt-hour than medium- to high-nickel NMC cathodes.“We’re thrilled to have secured this grant support from Innovate UK and the matching investment from Elbow Beach, World Fund and other Anaphite investors,” said Joe Stevenson, CEO at Anaphite. “This enables us to attack one of the toughest technical challenges in dry coating – successfully manufacturing LFP electrodes. Once achieved at scale, it will be enormously valuable to the industry.”linkedin.com
