Xerotech battery safety technology could have applications in space economy

ESA considers Galway company's battery safety foam

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A Galway-based company is working to adapt one of its core proprietary battery safety technologies for use by the European Space Agency.

Xerotech’s Hibernium passive propagation resistant (PPR) technology was designed for off-highway vehicles and non-road mobile-machinery.

PPR design is a critical safety requirement of future space missions including manned spaceflight. Xerotech’s PPR technology is capable of preventing single and multi-cell thermal runaway within a battery pack by utilising an ultra-lightweight fire-retardant structural foam which is 90% lighter than competing PPR technologies. The technology can be applied to all current space battery designs and has the potential to enable previously impossible mission profiles and applications.

“This is a very exciting project with ESA under the Building Blocks General Support Technology Program (GSTP), that will enable Xerotech to stay at the forefront of battery pack design. Demonstrating that our proprietary PPR solution exceeds the extremely stringent requirements for space applications will provide tremendous technical validation of a core pillar of Xerotech’s battery safety concept which has already been proven in ground-based applications,” said Barry Flannery, CEO and founder of Xerotech.

“We have experienced an excellent market reception of our recently launched Hibernium platform, partially thanks to the market leading safety-first design. This project with ESA further strengthens our position as leaders in module and pack technology, not only for heavy duty vehicles, but for battery packs in general,” said Thomas Tomaszewski, VP of business development at Xerotech.

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Read More: ESA European Space Agency space economy Xerotech