SES launches world's largest lithium metal battery Apollo with a capacity of 107 Ah

On November 4, SES (SolidEnergy Systems), a developer of high-performance hybrid lithium metal rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), announced the launch of the 107 Ah lithium metal battery Apollo, which is designed for use in the automotive industry. This battery is also the world's largest single-cell lithium metal battery.

(Image source: SES)

In addition, SES also announced that it will build the world's largest lithium metal factory in Shanghai. The 300,000 square foot factory is scheduled to be completed in 2023 and can produce 1 GWh of lithium metal batteries per year.

(Image source: SES)

SES has addressed the dendrite safety issues associated with lithium metal batteries by coating lithium metal with a polymer coating and using a high-concentration electrolyte that inhibits dendrite formation. SES' strategy is to dominate the lithium metal battery market by first commercializing a hybrid approach that combines a liquid electrolyte and a solid coating, which is easier to implement than an all-solid-state solution.

The new battery Apollo has a capacity of up to 107 Ah, but weighs only 0.982 kg, with energy densities of 417 Wh/kg and 935 Wh/L. When tested at room temperature at C/10 (10-hour discharge), C/3 (3-hour discharge) and 1C (1-hour discharge), Apollo also showed similar high capacity and energy density.

SES founder and CEO Hu Qichao said: "We have spent nearly a decade developing hybrid lithium metal batteries. The battery needs to be able to achieve high energy density over a wide range of temperature and power density. Because the driving environment of the car may be very hot and cold, and it needs to operate seamlessly when driving fast or slow. But at the current level of hybrid lithium metal batteries, solid-state batteries will never be able to achieve this performance."

SES also introduced its three parallel development products: Hermes (material development platform). In actual driving tests, Hermes lithium metal batteries are 24% lighter than lithium-ion batteries and have 77% higher energy density; Apollo (engineering capabilities for large automotive batteries); Avatar (artificial intelligence safety software for monitoring battery health).