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Battery innovation centre to be established…

Battery innovation centre to be established at UBC Okanagan

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The B.C. provincial government is contributing $2 million through its Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) fund to establish a battery innovation centre at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus (UBCO).

This facility will focus on research and development of new battery technologies, advancing B.C.’s battery supply-chain sector and growing the Okanagan region’s role as a battery and critical-mineral hub.

“The battery innovation centre is a monumental step forward for British Columbia’s clean-energy transition, demonstrating the quality, leading-edge work emerging from the sector,” said Josie Osborne, minister of energy, mines and low carbon innovation. “People and industry are increasingly relying on battery-powered devices for cellphones, electric vehicles, medical equipment and more. This project will see multiple benefits, opening up new research and development opportunities and creating quality jobs for British Columbians.”

The battery innovation centre will be the first of its kind in Western Canada, serving as a critical hub for testing and scaling up next-generation battery technologies that have the potential to offer increased energy density, higher safety and lower-cost alternatives to lithium-ion batteries.

Over the past seven years, Dr. Jian Liu and fellow researchers have been working with many small and medium-sized businesses across Canada to improve the country’s battery supply chain.

“Many companies lack the ability to test and demonstrate their materials, and in Canada there is a lack of ability and infrastructure for battery prototyping. The new facility will help us fill this gap,” says Liu, who in addition to serving as an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering with UBCO’s School of Engineering, also leads UBCO’s Battery Innovation Cluster and is the principal’s research chair in Energy Storage Technologies.

Dr. Jian Lui.

In addition, the centre will support regional economic development through the battery sector’s circular supply chain, incorporating battery recycling and metal processing in the Kootenay region, battery manufacturing in the Lower Mainland and critical mineral mining throughout B.C. Locally available materials, such as sulphur from mining and oil refineries, and tellurium recycled from smelting wastes, will be used to reduce the reliance on overseas critical minerals and support domestic production.

“We are grateful to the government of B.C. for this significant investment in the Battery Innovation Centre,” said Lesley Cormack, principal, UBC Okanagan. “Effective energy storage is a critical element of a low-carbon energy future and the work of our research team has already improved Canada’s battery supply chain. This investment will elevate that work even further by providing the necessary space to create and test battery prototypes on a larger scale.”

B.C.’s $2-million investment will go toward construction and equipment costs for a 2,000-square-foot pilot pouch cell facility within the battery innovation centre. The facility will produce commercial-scale pouch cells for use in medical devices and other applications.

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