Ilika Plc Regulatory News (IKA)

Ilika plc

("Ilika" or the "Company")

Validation of World First Solid-State Battery

On January 9th this year Ilika (AIM: IKA), the advanced materials discovery company, announced that it had achieved a unique processing methodology to produce stacked solid-state batteries; a world-first and a solution to a key barrier to mass-market entry for solid-state batteries. This is an innovation likely to lead to significant out-licensing opportunities.

This morning, Ilika is delighted to announce that electrochemical testing of the stacked solid-state batteries manufactured using Ilika's proprietary process has generated performance data that validates the stacked architecture, with two-cell stacks producing twice the voltage and power of a single cell.

In one automated procedure, Ilika has successfully simultaneously produced one hundred identical solid-state batteries using the Company's proprietary process technology. Each battery consists of two cells deposited in series producing a composite device with a second cell on top of the first. This has resulted in a doubling of the voltage available from the battery to approximately 8 Volts.

Further development work is continuing to increase the number of cells in each stacked battery and also their cross sectional area. This will result in batteries containing sufficient energy for initial commercialisation in network sensor applications, which is a rapidly growing segment expected to create an addressable market for micro-batteries in excess of £1bn by 2017. This scalable stacked cell architecture enables the simple fabrication of cells over a wide range of sizes. The stacking of multiple cells opens up the pathway to larger, higher power solid-state devices for the consumer electronic industry.

Since mid-October 2013, Ilika has had a single solid-state lithium ion battery cell on test. The cell has been rapidly charged and discharged 2,200 times, which is equivalent to demonstrating a lifetime of around six years in a typical consumer electronics application. Demonstrations of longer lifetimes are in progress.

The performance data indicated above is now being shared with Ilika's OEM partners in the US, Japan and Europe reinforcing, and in some cases accelerating, commercialisation discussions.

Commenting on this ground-breaking development, Graeme Purdy, CEO, stated: "The performance data generated by these laboratory batteries is extremely promising. Once scaled, these solid-state batteries would offer consumers the equivalent of having a longer-lasting smart-phone battery half the size of current batteries which can be fully recharged in about 10 minutes rather than an hour."

About Solid-State Lithium Ion Batteries

Solid-state lithium ion batteries have a number of significant safety and performance benefits over existing commercially available lithium ion batteries:

· Non flammable

· Faster charging - can be charged 6x faster

· Longer lasting - can retain charge 4x longer

· Increased energy density - can contain 2x the energy for the same volume and weight

The mass-market commercialisation of solid-state batteries will be a step change in the evolution of battery technology; enabling lighter, safer batteries which charge faster and retain their charge longer than the highest performance lithium ion incumbents.

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