CSIR To Set Up Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Battery Manufacturing Facility In Chennai

The Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is building a lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Chennai to reduce India's import dependence on countries like China and South Korea.

The Central Electro Chemical Research Institute, a laboratory under the CSIR, is building the facility at CSIR Madras Complex at Taramani in Chennai.

The batteries manufactured at the plant would be long-lasting with around 5 to 10 times more lifetime than the currently used Li-ion batteries.

They will also be smaller in size compared to the current batteries.

The plant, which is expected to be ready by 2024, will produce around 1,000 batteries a day.

The batteries produced in the facility would be focused mostly on consumer electronics applications.

The CECRI is aiming to rope in private players at the facility to train the industry with the technology and offer plug-and-play service, reports The New Indian Express.

“Basically, the technology being new, we want to demonstrate it on large scale to the industry, so that they don’t have any difficulties in adopting the technology,” Dr K J Sreeram, who holds the additional charge of CECRI, was quoted in the TNIE report as saying.

The CSIR researchers are also looking after the extraction of the rare earth minerals utilised in the Li-ion batteries.

“As we have more manufacturing capacity, we will be able to source materials in India. Most of our beaches in the down south have Monazite sand, which is a good source of rare earth minerals,” he said.

At present, CERCI has a public-private partnership with the revenue sharing model at its Li-ion battery fabrication facility, established as CSIR Innovation Centre for Next Generation Energy Storage Solutions (ICeNGESS) and has a capacity to produce 100 batteries a day.