IEEE PES/PELS/IAS visited Xerion Advanced Battery Corps R&D and Manufacturing Center

Left to Right: Jason Reber, Samith Sirimanna, Yovahn Hoole, Xiaolong Zhang, Dongsu Lee, Melody Yi, Chris Barth, Thanatheepan Balachandran, Andy Yoon, John Cook, Yuyao Wang, Peter Xiao, Byung Hoon Min,
Sherry Yu, Thomas Foulkes, and Aaron Anderson

IEEE PES/PELS/IAS members had the privilege of touring the Xerion Advanced Battery Corps R&D and Manufacturing Center on October 16, 2018. Dr. John Cook, Xerion’s director of R&D, walked the students through each step of the process for manufacturing traditional and Xerion’s advanced batteries. This tour provided valuable insight about the challenges for developing, fabricating, and packaging high-performance batteries. Jason Reber, who is leading the effort to scale up the battery manufacturing process at Xerion, discussed the difficulty of manufacturing and packaging batteries at a large scale and shared how the Xerion team is tackling these problems. Jason gave the students a behind-the-scenes look at the expanding manufacturing capabilities that Xerion is bringing online. The ultra-fast charging batteries being developed by Xerion have strong potential to become an enabler for the more-electric aircraft for which many UIUC students are working to design power converters and electric machines. This tour also provided an inspirational example of the amazing opportunities and benefits of pursuing a career in a start-up company.
Contributed by Thomas Foulkes