Gelion PLC (AIM:GELN) shares were up over 13% in Friday morning's trade after announcing that its OXLiD subsidiary has been awarded £533,000 from the UK Government programme to advance lithium-sulfur technology.
It is a 12-month, £1.1 million project that's co-funded with in-kind contributions from Gelion, and will focus on scaling up multi-layer 'pouch' cells for use in high-energy applications.
The programme will be delivered in partnership with defence group QinetiQ, which will assemble and independently test the demonstrators.
Gelion told investors that the project provides “a necessary step to initiate full market adoption” of its sulfur cathode active material technology.
"We are grateful for this government support via the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC) to demonstrate how use of our breakthrough Sulfur Cathode Material with Lithium Metal anodes can deliver cells with not only ultra-high energy density but that are also a full set of the other additional performance attributes needed for application to strategic applications like defence and aerospace," Gelion chief executive John Wood said.
QinetiQ meanwhile described "considerable potential for future defence applications", as the UK MOD plans to progress electrification to enhance capability and reduce carbon footprint.
"Our pouch cell assembly capability is ideal for this APC Demonstrate programme, where small numbers of custom cells are required for development and testing purposes or for safety certification to mature the technology," Qinetiq added.
In London, Gelion shares climbed 13% to trade at 21.5p,