Richard LeCain becomes CTO of UK’s battery manufacturing centre of excellence

Richard LeCain has been appointed chief technology officer at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC).

“Richard has more than 20 years of experience working in the battery industry, having previously held technical and leadership positions at A123 Systems and Britishvolt,” according to UKBIC. He “has worked in battery plants across the world, transferring processes and designs from the lab into manufacturing”.

LeCain will report into UKBIC MD Sean Gilgunn, and will sit on the executive team with responsibility for technical process design, product development and R&D activities across the business.

“We’re excited with the appointment of Richard to the role of CTO,” said Gilgunn. “Richard’s vast expertise and experience will be hugely beneficial to our customers and employees alike, as our customers develop and refine their battery products as they move along their scale-up journeys.”

“From my previous engagement with UKBIC on the customer side with Britishvolt, I saw first-hand how well UKBIC could make cells and I’m excited to be part of that team now,” said LeCain, who was director of cell and process engineering there, developing a 21700 cell with WMG (was Warwick Manufacturing Group).

After that he was director of cell development at GDI, integrating silicon anodes into lithium-ion batteries, and A123 Systems is where he started his career, as a lithium iron phosphate process engineer for cylindrical and pouch cells.

UKBIC is the UK’s national battery manufacturing development facility, and part of the £610m Faraday Battery Challenge, with a mission to assist companies scaling their own battery technology to industrial levels, or to assist companies seeking to enter the industry.

The organisation has its own production line at its 20,000m² purpose-built facility in Coventry (left), opened in July 2021 with £130m of funding from bodies including the West Midlands Combined Authority, and with the involvement of Coventry City Council, Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and WMG.

UK Research and Innovation has recently contributed a further £74m, primarily to build a pilot line that will sit between the in-house production line and small-scale technology demonstrators elsewhere. It is also intended to fund a battery development laboratory and a ‘clean and dry’ zone.