Pentagon-backed battery innovation facility opens at UT Dallas

• The University of Texas at Dallas earlier this month announced the opening of its Batteries and Energy to Advance Commercialization and National Security – or BEACONS – facility, which aims to help commercialize new battery technologies, China-proof the lithium-ion battery supply chain and bolster the national battery workforce.
• The facility is funded by a $30 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense, and is also collaborating with industry partners including Associated Universities Inc. and LEAP Manufacturing.
• “We want to have that supply chain resilience and independence from the Chinese supply chain,” said BEACONS Director Kyeongjae Cho. “So that even if things really go bad and China decides to cut off [access to] all of these critical mineral supplies, the [domestic battery supply] will not be impacted by that, especially those going to defense applications.”

DOD provides a lot of battery demand, Cho said, due to their need to operate energy-intensive technology in the field. The Pentagon’s battery supply chain is set to shrink after the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act barred DOD from procuring batteries from some Chinese-owned entities starting in October 2027.

The banned suppliers are China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology, BYD, Envision Energy, EVE Energy Company, Gotion High-tech and Hithium Energy Storage.

China currently dominates the “active materials production portion” of the lithium battery supply chain, according to a 2024 article from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Previously, a lot of defense applications were purchasing batteries from Chinese manufacturers,” Cho said. “So that's creating this dependence on the Chinese supply, and under the unlikely but unfavorable scenario, our defense would be stuck in their supply chain. That's something we want to avoid.”

The program is particularly focused on advancing solid state battery technology, which is more commonly used for drones and defense applications than other alternative battery types like sodium-ion and zinc-ion, Cho said.

The new facility includes a 3,500-square-foot “dry room,” which is a lab kept at below 1% relative humidity to protect moisture-sensitive materials and processes during battery manufacturing, the University of Texas at Dallas said in a release. It also features a solid electrolyte room, multiple flexible production lines to facilitate rapid development and testing of new battery technologies, and workspaces for training and industry collaboration, the school said.

In order to uncouple the U.S. supply chain from China, the facility has been working on developing critical mineral supply chain transparency, as “we need to diagnose the issues before trying to address them,” Cho said.

“That's been rapidly maturing in terms of identifying how different minerals are going through different steps, and then we are working on developing an independent, China-free critical mineral supply chain,” he added.

Doing so will likely involve relying on battery cathode companies in allied countries like Canada and Korea, Cho said, as it’s unlikely that the U.S. will be able to get up to speed on cathode development.

The facility aims to bolster the domestic workforce through training, and is partnering with community colleges in North Texas to make sure the state’s battery industry can tap workers with a range of expertise.

“To run any production line you need, typically, community college graduates, who are not moving around,” Cho said. “They usually find a job in their area, where their family and friends are. [So the companies] have to develop their own local workforce.”