The CSIRO has teamed up with Japanese specialist chemical manufacturer Piotrek to help commercialise Australian-developed battery technologies within the next five years.

The two organisations are working together to develop the next generation of solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) for lithium batteries using CSIRO’s proprietary RAFT (reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer) polymer technology and Piotrek’s ion conducting polymers (ICPs).

CSIRO Battery Research Leader, Dr Adam Best, says that with several companies already active in this field, there are proposals to have solid state battery enabled devices in the market by 2025, if not sooner.

“Our RAFT technology allows us to tune our SPEs’ properties to expand their versatility for different types of batteries and fuel cells, and will also significantly reduce the cost of device assembly and manufacture,” says Dr Best.

CSIRO’s Dr John Chiefari is a co-inventor and co-developer of the RAFT polymer technology, and worked with Professors Maria Forsyth and Patrick Howlett from Deakin University’s BatTri Hub to develop the SPEs. Dr Chiefari says the exciting collaboration with Piotrek will bring together battery technologies from both organisations to fast- track the development of an SPE for use in high energy (4.5-5V) lithium batteries for electric vehicles and drones.

He says: “By developing and exploiting disruptive technology platforms, we’re supporting the creation of new businesses and industries for Australia and the world.

CSIRO is also working with Piotrek to automate electrolyte processes using robots, and to license a new electrolyte recipe.