A lithium-sulfur battery cell that can power heavy trucks and buses is being built and tested by a consortium of UK companies and universities. Today’s electric vehicles rely on lithium-ion batteries, which are heavy, expensive, and limit how much cargo a truck can carry. Lithium-sulfur chemistry offers a lighter alternative, but until now its power output and lifespan have been too low for large vehicles. This project aims to deliver a 400 Wh/kg cell—roughly double the energy density of current lithium-ion packs—while improving cycle life, safety, and manufacturability. If successful, buses and trucks could carry significantly more payload for the same battery weight, and the abundant materials in lithium-sulfur cells should lower costs. The team is also developing non-invasive X-ray quality control, better state-of-charge algorithms, and a pilot manufacturing line. The technology is not limited to road vehicles; it could eventually be used in aerospace, space, and stationary energy storage. The project is applied engineering, not fundamental science—it builds directly on earlier work to solve specific performance and production bottlenecks.
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he Lithium Sulfur: Future Automotive Battery (LiS:FAB) project will develop a next generation cell and module that is suitable for large electric vehicles such as trucks and buses. It will deliver a 400 Wh/kg Li-S cell that has the significantly improved power and cycle life required by large automotive applications. This cell will allow buses and trucks to carry significantly more payload and due to the abundant cell construction materials, cost less. The module cell and module state of health and charge (SoH & SoC) will be improved, along with the manufacturability. The project is split into 4 work packages: Cell Performance By building on past projects that increased cell specific energy (Wh/kg), further improvements will be made to cycle life, power and cell design to meet the performance and safety needs of EVs. OXIS, UCL and William Blythe will utilise new materials to improve performance and characterise electrodes and cells using X-ray tomography and other techniques to accelerate development. WAE will advise on cell design. Cell Characterisation Extensive testing of cells will be carried out to inform development. This will include rigorous safety tests, rapid test protocols/formation studies, degradation/abuse analysis. Software tools will also be further developed from the REVB project to allow analysis of large amounts of test data. Cell Manufacturability BPE will lead the design of a pilot facility for the cells that are developed on this project. OXIS and Ceetak will develop critical pouch cell sealing technology required to make a robust automotive cell. OXIS and UCL will develop a novel, non-invasive X-Ray quality control process for cells. Module Development OXIS and Cranfield will build on the control algorithms developed on the earlier REVB project to better predict SoC and SoH and to create intelligent charging algorithms to improve lifetime. Cell matching and module construction techniques will be investigated and a final module will be demonstrated. The LiS:FAB project will deliver multiple improvements for EVs and the technology developed will be applicable to wider markets such as aerospace, space and energy storage.
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