Ion Storage Systems (ION), a Maryland-based manufacturer of solid-state batteries (SSBs), announced that it will receive $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) as part of a three-year, $40 million partnership with several commercialization partners.

ION will collaborate with Saint-Gobain, one of the world's largest ceramics, glass and material suppliers and KLA, a leader in semiconductor process and quality control, to dramatically accelerate the commercialization of ION's high-performing, anodeless SSB. The ARPA-E SCALEUP program will contribute $20 million that will be matched by another $20 million in private funds, bringing the total program size to $40 million.

ARPA-E's SCALEUP (Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy Technologies with Untapped Potential) program builds on the agency's "primary research and development focus to support the scaling of … disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications." ION was one of four companies to secure funding from SCALEUP in 2024 as part of its $63.5 million program budget.

According to ARPA-E, the program's goal is to help ARPA-E-funded technologies transition from proof-of-concept prototypes to commercially scalable and deployable versions of the technology. ARPA-E's SCALEUP funding and corporate partnerships enable ION to manufacture high performing, EV-scale SSB cells in the U.S. with domestically sourced materials while expanding on what is already among the largest SSB manufacturing facilities in the United States.

The project will include sustainability-focused cell design and manufacturing milestones, with planned innovations offering the opportunity for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions on the order of tens of thousands of metric tons of CO2 per GWh relative to Li-ion.

ION, the only anodeless and compressionless SSB battery to achieve hundreds of cycles, recently opened one of the largest SSB manufacturing facilities in the country and announced a supply agreement with Saint-Gobain in late 2023.

In addition to the extensive collaboration with ARPA-E, the company is also working closely with other government agencies on applications related to defense and aerospace.