Battery weight can influence much more than the specification of the battery itself. In sectors such as defence, aerospace and motorsport, reducing mass can contribute to longer endurance, greater payload flexibility, improved range and better overall system performance.
At Avocet Battery Materials, this challenge led to the development of Flyweight, our proprietary bimetallic lead tab for pouch cells. Designed and manufactured in the UK, it reduces the amount of copper traditionally required in an anode tab by replacing much of it with lighter aluminium.
The result is a lighter tab while maintaining copper-to-copper welding at the foil stack and aluminium-to-aluminium welding at module level.
Why Component-Level Weight Reduction Matters
A single battery tab represents only a small proportion of a complete battery system. Multiply that component across hundreds or thousands of cells, however, and relatively small individual savings can become significant at pack level.
Our proprietary bimetallic lead tab gives battery developers another area of the system to optimise without simply reducing tab dimensions. Its bimetallic construction addresses weight through material selection while retaining established welding interfaces and electrical performance. The value of that weight reduction becomes particularly clear in applications where every gram has a purpose.
Flyweight for Defence Applications
Battery-powered defence platforms often need to balance endurance, payload and overall system mass. Reducing battery weight can create greater flexibility in that balance. A lighter battery system may contribute to longer operating periods or allow more of the available weight allowance to be allocated elsewhere in the platform.
Flyweight is therefore particularly relevant to developers of lightweight, high-performance defence battery systems where endurance and payload flexibility are important design considerations. UK manufacturing also provides an additional advantage for organisations looking to develop more secure and resilient supply chains for critical battery components.
Supporting Lighter Aerospace Battery Systems
Aerospace applications place an especially high value on weight reduction. Additional mass affects the energy required for flight, making battery weight a central consideration for electric aircraft and eVTOL development. Flyweight allows engineers to examine a component that can easily be overlooked during battery optimisation. Reducing the mass of the tabs across a complete battery pack can contribute to the wider objective of improving range, endurance and payload capability.
Rather than treating the tab simply as an electrical connection, it makes it part of the lightweighting strategy for the complete battery system.
Performance Matters in Motorsport
Motorsport presents a different challenge, but the principle remains the same: unnecessary weight is something engineers continually work to remove. Battery systems need to provide high levels of performance while fitting within strict packaging and weight requirements. Flyweight offers another opportunity to reduce mass at cell level, with those savings accumulating throughout the complete pack.
For high-performance battery programmes, optimising components such as the lead tab can therefore contribute to the wider pursuit of a lighter and more efficient system.
From Prototype Development to Production
Different applications require different cell and module designs, which is why our bimetallic tab is not treated as a one-size-fits-all product.
Avocet Battery Materials works closely with customers from early-stage R&D through to production-scale manufacturing, developing tab solutions around individual battery requirements. With UK-based manufacturing, in-house testing capabilities and experience in high-performance battery materials, we can support organisations developing lightweight battery systems for defence, aerospace, motorsport and other demanding applications.
Flyweight demonstrates that meaningful battery weight reduction doesn’t always require changing the entire cell. Sometimes, it starts by reconsidering the components already inside it.
