Fast-charging battery spinout powers up with major investment

Gaussion, a UCL spinout behind a new technology that allows ultrafast and safe battery charging - essential for the rapidly growing electrical vehicle sector - has raised £2.85 million in a seed investment round. The MagLib technology can unlock truly rapid charging on existing commercially available lithium-ion batteries, reducing the time taken to just ten minutes. Shortening battery charging times is important not only for the fast-moving electric vehicle (EV) market but also for phones, power tools, drones and other applications, however repeated fast charging has been proven to damage batteries. Gaussion is set to offer the first cost-effective technological solution to this which prevents the irreversible damage associated with rapid charging. The patent-pending technology was first conceived by Dr Thomas Heenan and Dr Chun Tan (both UCL Chemical Engineering) back in 2017 at the UCL Electrochemical Innovation Lab (EIL), and inspired by the team's earlier work using particle accelerators to analyse energy materials. Since then, the UCL engineers have taken commercial cells designed to charge in one to five hours and demonstrated over a thousand cycles of consecutive 10-minute charging while still meeting all warranty specifications, creating a technology that is primed to disrupt the global EV market. Dr Chun Tan, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Gaussion, said: "We've built a world-leading team that is now working to commercialise this innovation as rapidly as possible.