Gelion PLC on Tuesday said it signed two new agreements with the University of Sydney to accelerate progress of an advanced cathode for its fifth-generation zinc hybrid cell.

The London-based Anglo-Australian battery storage company said the two agreements would centre on the University of Sydney’s Laboratory for Advanced Carbon Research, led by one of its professors Yuan Chen. Chen will act as a consultant to Gelion, providing ‘his guidance and experience to accelerate progress in both technical and commercial aspects of the Gen 5 Zinc Hybrid Cell development’.

Gelion said these research streams are expected to generate commercially relevant prototypes by the end of 2023.

It said this will leverage insight from the manufacture of 1,200 zinc bromide batteries at the pilot manufacturing facility in February 2023, alongside the battery management systems development since then as part of the company’s research and development pathway to commercialisation.

Gelion said it will retain any intellectual property developed during the project.

‘Zinc is positioned to be a very important battery element due to its abundance and low cost. We have now modified the direction of our Gelion Zinc cell activities toward a hybrid cell that is designed to both be readily scalable because of its safety, cost, and the materials chosen, while delivering features important to the market including robustness, a wide temperature tolerance, the ability to use a wide range of charge and be stored and transported in a discharged state,’ said Chief Executive Officer John Wood.

‘We are very fortunate to be able to work with Professor Yuan Chen to incorporate his research, understanding, and experience to move both quickly and directly towards our goals. We are conducting an accelerated validation until the end of this year before setting out our zinc commercialisation plan and will update soon after. We are very confident this is a key positive inflection point in our zinc activities.’

Meanwhile, Gelion said revenue in the financial year that ended June 30 is expected to be £2.0 million, ahead of current guidance of GB1.7 million.

Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is expected to be around £6.0 million, lower than current guidance of £6.4 million.

Net cash at June 30 was £7.3 million, marginally higher than current guidance of £7.1 million. Gelion noted this balance is after using £3.0 million in cash to Johnson Matthey PLC’s intellectual property portfolio in March 2023.

Since March 2023, Gelion said it has focused on reducing costs and taken steps to reduce cash consumption by around £1.0 million on a yearly basis.

Shares in Gelion were up 2.0% to 24.99 pence each in London on Tuesday afternoon.

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