Illumion

Super-Charging Battery Development with Light

Funding Opportunity

Seeking seed funding of £2M to bring charge photometry to the battery market and secure market traction for our first product, the illumionONE.

£2M Seed

Overview

illumion revolutionizes how we develop better batteries. They have developed the first Charge Photometry solution for battery testing – a rapid, affordable and lab-based microscopy platform – which enables R&D teams to directly visualize how energy is stored in a battery in real time, at sub-micrometer scales, and in realistic sample environments.

illumion’s data-driven approach speeds up material discovery and unlocks new possibilities for battery R&D in the pursuit of high-performance battery materials.

The Challenge

Batteries drive society towards a sustainable future. But developing a better battery material takes >5 years in an R&D lab alone, due to the low throughput and insights of current testing methods.

Key to breaking through this barrier is an understanding of how lithium (or other ions) enter and leave the active material in an operating battery to store and release energy throughout operation.

Until now, this information could not be obtained at the throughput required to meet battery demand and net-zero targets.

The Solution

illumion has developed the first Charge Photometry solution for battery testing – a novel and high-throughput optical tool which visualises how battery materials charge and discharge during the operation of a battery with light.

Charge Photometry offers a rapid data-driven testing platform for battery materials, removes the need for lengthy destructive testing and provides rich insights into the working and failure mechanisms of battery materials.

Through Charge Photometry, new battery materials and chemistries will be brought to market faster.