NEO Battery, Korea Zinc and Taesung launch joint effort to commercialize composite copper foil for drones and micromobility

NEO Battery Materials, Korea Zinc and Taesung have agreed a technical partnership to translate composite copper foil from a laboratory concept into validated battery components for drones, robotics and micromobility applications. The collaboration combines Korea Zinc’s upstream materials capability, Taesung’s processing and equipment know-how, and NEO’s cell-integration expertise centered on silicon-dominant anodes. The composite approach replaces portions of solid copper current collectors with engineered polymer layers to reduce copper content, lower pack mass and influence thermal response, addressing weight and energy-density trade-offs important to small autonomous platforms. Beyond material formulation, the MOU covers process optimization, pilot manufacturing trials and assembly of system-level prototypes so that performance can be assessed under realistic operating conditions rather than only at cell-bench scale. NEO will lead foil integration and bench-scale cell evaluation; conditional milestones will gate any step-up to joint prototype production, giving the partners a pragmatic go/no-go framework. Separately, NEO has recently demonstrated a rapid in-house cell development cadence—producing and testing multiple prototype cells and moving to pack assembly and scheduled field trials—which provides relevant experience in moving from cell concept to pack validation that the composite-foil program can draw on. Those parallel activities are distinct programs, however, and a successful field demonstration of composite foils will still depend on proving compatibility with existing cell architectures and manufacturing flows. Commercial viability will hinge on reproducible process yields at pilot and then industrial scale, validated cycle-life and safety under duty cycles representative of UAV and micromobility use, and independent verification under regulatory scrutiny. Strategically, the partnership lets Korea Zinc broaden into advanced battery materials while positioning Taesung as an equipment supplier for novel current collectors and giving NEO an additional materials lever to boost the benefits of its silicon anodes. For end users the promised outcomes are lighter packs, higher usable energy for a given volume, and potentially improved safety margins if thermal performance is realized. The announcement is an R&D and early prototyping campaign rather than a product launch: its success will be judged on meeting the technical milestones and on how quickly pilot yields and reliability metrics can be demonstrated.