Munich-based aircraft manufacturer Vaeridion has opened its electric battery development lab, located at the Bosch Collaboration Campus in Holzkirchen, Germany, where it will build safe-to-fly batteries for commercial passenger aircraft.
The lab is designed for all specific manufacturing steps from single battery cells up to fully integrated battery modules. The facility will produce, and test in-house developed high voltage battery modules and powertrains, as well as individual battery cells, that are comprised of cylindrical cells.
According to Dr. Sebastian Seeman, Chief Technical Officer of Vaeridion, the modules will be located and integrated exclusively in the aircraft’s wing.
“The modules are arranged in spanwise direction, yet structurally decoupled from the wing bending, hence they bear no structural loads caused by aerodynamics and wing mass,” Seeman said in an emailed statement to AeroTime. “The battery consists of many individual and isolated modules. Each module is inherently safe to handle and designed to withstand an internal thermal runaway without harming the remainder of the aircraft or humans.”
The manufacturer uses off-the-shelf lithium-ion battery cells with such energy densities (cell levels), that are sufficient to cover a good percentage of short-range travel demand. The already announced next cell generations will be capable to increase the range or payload capabilities.
Additionally, the new lab will test and integrate its proprietary high voltage batteries for Vaeridion’s flagship aircraft, Microliner. It is poised to be an electric fixed-wing aircraft that can transport nine passengers up to 500 kilometers emission free.
According to Vaeridion’s official announcement, published on July 6, 2024, production of the Microliner is set to begin before 2030.
The company’s further plans involve the integration of the first complete modules.
“As an essential demonstration, we intend to test and analyze containment capabilities of the closed module in case of a cell thermal runaway,” Seeman said.