Scientists at the company recently tested its battery on a drone by replacing the existing lithium cells with a small, 10-layer lithium sulphur test cell.

“The drone tests were successful with the drone flying high above an AFL sports found and reaching the maximum radio signal range of the drone remote controller,” Li-S chairman Ben Spincer said.

He said a comparison of the Li-S battery with the drone’s own battery showed the lithium sulphur cells achieved over 2.2 times the gravimetric energy density compared to the original cells.

This is amount of energy a cell can hold per unit of weight and is important for products like drones and electric vehicles that need batteries to move.

“This is extremely encouraging as the small, 10-layer Li-S cells carry a very high percentage of packaging and dead weight,” Spincer said.

“As we scale up to commercial cells we expect performance should continue to improve.”

He said battery testing was not always an exciting activity.

“So it was great to witness the excitement of our scientific team as they watched the Li-S battery technology they created flying above them.

“While there are many steps in our journey towards commercialisation, this early battery test flight was a special moment.”

Li-S shares have taken a battering in recent months as the risk-off sentiment hit the market and stocks without a real revenue source took a battering.

A year ago, Li-S was trading at $2.35 but it has since sunk to 51 cents.