Coherent selected for funding under DOE FY23 Vehicle Technologies Office program

Coherent has been selected for multimillion-dollar funding under the Department of Energy, or DOE, FY23 Vehicle Technologies Office, or VTO, Program Wide Funding Opportunity Announcement. This funding will accelerate the development of Coherent’s patented chemical immobilization technology for lithium sulfur, or Li-S, battery cells to meet next-generation electric vehicle, or EV, requirements. Under this three-year program, Coherent will use the DOE funds to optimize its patented immobilized sulfur materials and cathodes for EV requirements. Coherent will build demonstration cells that target energy densities exceeding today’s best-in-class EV batteries while retaining more than 80% of their original capacity after 1,000 recharging cycles. Designing and manufacturing stable cathodes based on sulfur has long been a goal of battery researchers, as sulfur provides both higher performance and lower cost compared with current cathode materials such as nickel and cobalt.