Nissan Solid-State Battery Project Targets Sulfur Cathode Cells

Inside The Nissan Solid-State Battery Project

Gelion is seeking to replace the strategic minerals in current Lithium-ion battery cathodes with Gelion’s Nano-Encapsulated Sulfur (NES™) that are low cost and can be dropped into existing global manufacturing lines. Gelion’s NES™ is made from sulfur which is abundantly available, free from supply chain constraints.

Gelion is pleased to announce a three-year collaborative project entitled Cost-effective, Resilient Solid-state Li–S (“CoRe-SoLiS” or “The Project”), alongside Nissan Technical Centre Europe (“NTCE”) and the University of Oxford, commencing in June 2026. The total project cost is £3.4 million, with £2.4 million in combined grant funding from Innovate UK across the partners under the Battery Innovation Concept Development Round 1 competition, including an award of £1.6 million to Gelion’s UK subsidiary.

• Synergy with Nissan EV36Zero: The Project aligns with Nissan’s major investment in its Sunderland manufacturing hub, ensuring the UK remains at the heart of Nissan’s European electrification strategy.
• World-leading technologies combined: The Project brings together Gelion’s breakthrough NES™ sulfur-based cathode active material with Nissan’s world-leading solid-state battery development capabilities, targeting next-generation EV batteries.
• Automotive end-market focus: The Project aims to build and deliver a high power (fast charge and discharge), high energy and long duration solid-state lithium-sulfur battery pack. In particular, the Project is focused on meeting the KPIs of automotive solid state battery applications, informed by Nissan’s performance, safety and manufacturability requirements.
• Cost and supply chain advantage: NES™ replaces expensive and supply-constrained nickel and cobalt with abundant, ultra-low-cost sulfur, supporting more affordable EV batteries and resilient western supply chains.
• Potential to accelerate solid-state adoption: Integration of Gelion’s inherently low-cost sulfur cathode addresses the key barriers to mass-market solid-state battery adoption – durability and cost.
• World-leading solid-state expertise: Oxford University, a global leader in solid-state battery science, provides advanced anode materials and cell-level expertise to de-risk integration.
• Strategic and Economic Impact: The Project supports the development of a resilient UK-based battery materials supply chain and lays the groundwork for Gelion to become a domestic supplier of advanced cathode materials. In addition, this will also support in executing Nissan’s aim to be a leader in EV solid state battery technologies and to continue to invest in the UK.

What Gelion’s Sulfur Cathode Changes

Solid-state batteries are widely recognised as a critical future technology for electrification due to their potential to deliver enhanced safety, higher energy density, and improved durability compared with conventional lithium-ion batteries that rely on liquid electrolytes. For the UK, developing solid-state battery capability is strategically important to maintain competitiveness in advanced manufacturing, support domestic EV production, and secure a strong position in the global battery value chain.

Sulfur-based batteries have historically faced technical limitations that have restricted commercial adoption, namely power and cycle-life due to polysulfides. Gelion’s NES™ technology overcomes these challenges, unlocking performance levels previously considered unachievable for sulfur cathodes. Combined with Nissan’s and University of Oxford’s world-leading solid-state expertise, CoRe-SoLiS aims to deliver solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries that are:

• Safer: Removing flammable liquid electrolytes.
• Longer-lasting: Enhanced stability and cycle durability.
• More affordable: Using ultra-low-cost, widely available materials.

The grant will support Gelion’s R&D and integration activities relating to the NES™ cathode within solid-state battery systems. Results from CoRe-SoLiS will inform future scale-up, manufacturing, and commercialisation efforts for solid-state batteries, with potential to expand collaboration across the automotive and energy storage sectors.

Gelion now has collaborations across TDK (Japan), QinetiQ, NTCE and Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPI) (Germany) reinforcing its leadership position in next-generation sulfur battery innovation.

Working with NTCE here in the UK brings us a visible pathway to significant commercial revenues as well as an opportunity to build an expanded R&D and production facility in this country. Congratulations to the world-class scientific team at Gelion that made this happen.

Steve Mahon, Chairman of Gelion

This endorsement of our technology’s commercial potential in solid-state cells for automotive applications highlights the platform nature of NES™ building on our work in liquid electrolyte and graphitic anode systems. The two primary opportunities to push battery performance boundaries (independently) are solid-state and sulfur cathode material. This project combines both and we are excited by the way the core technologies have the potential to complement and extend each other.

John Wood, CEO of Gelion

This project has the potential to be a game-changer for the UK, Nissan and Gelion. Our technology is particularly well-suited to solid-state batteries due to the exceptional physical properties of NES™, its unique potential to substitute NMC and be used as a drop-in solution into existing and future solid-state battery production lines. I look forward very much to working with our partners to the benefit of all of our stakeholders.

Adrien Amigues, President Gelion UK & Europe and CoRe-SoLiS team lead

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