Lithium News

A better performance, lower costs, and enhanced safety compared to lithium-ion batteries: These are the hopes of scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and their cooperation partners in relation to novel magnesium batteries to be developed under the E-MAGIC research project. E-MAGIC is funded by the European Union (EU) with more than EUR 6.5 million and is to pool the relevant activities of various European science institutions.

Compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, a magnesium battery has many advantages: When using magnesium as an anode material, energy density is increased and safety is enhanced. “Magnesium is a very promising material and one of the most important candidates for our post-lithium strategy,” says Professor Maximilian Fichtner, Deputy Director of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU), a research institute established by KIT in cooperation with Ulm University and the associated partners DLR and ZSW for the investigation and development of electrochemical battery concepts. “Wide availability of magnesium batteries might push electrification of mobility and increasing use of decentralized home storage systems.” To accelerate the development of the novel battery type, HIU cooperates with other scientific institutions in the area of battery and materials research within the research project European Magnesium Interactive Battery Community (E-MAGIC). This project funded by the EU under the “Horizon 2020” program will pool the expertise of ten scientific institutions, with the HIU being granted a high six-digit amount. E-MAGIC is coordinated by the Fundación Cidetec, Spain.

E-MAGIC is to pool all steps required for the development of magnesium batteries, from fundamental research to cell production processes. Researchers of HIU will work on understanding the obstacles and challenges on the level of materials and on designing new solutions for current problems. “As regards magnesium batteries, the biggest challenge consists in a long service life,” says Dr. Zhirong Zhao-Karger, who coordinates project-related activities of the solid state chemistry group of HIU. Yet, the new battery material has numerous positive properties that can be used: for example, no dendrites are formed at the magnesium anodes. When using lithium-ion batteries, such electrochemical deposits on the electrodes may form needle-shaped structures and cause damage or even short circuits. “In the case of magnesium, there are no such processes. Hence, we can apply magnesium in metallic form and directly use the high storage capacity of the metal. This enhances the performance of the battery,” Zhao-Karger says.

Apart from the higher safety and energy density, use of magnesium technology for battery production might help reduce the dependence on lithium as a raw material. Compared to lithium, magnesium availability on earth is higher by a factor of 3000. Moreover, it can be recycled more easily. Consequently, magnesium batteries would also be cheaper than lithium-ion batteries. In the case of quick progress in Europe, magnesium batteries might also help reduce the dominance of Asian manufacturers of battery cells and establish competitive battery production in Europe.

The European Commission has ruled that Poland’s 36 million-euro investment aid to chemical company LG Chem for a new electric vehicle batteries plant in the Dolnoślaskie region to be in line with EU state aid rules. The aid will contribute to the region’s development whilst preserving competition.

The investment aid will support LG Chem’s 325 million-euro investment in a new vertically integrated manufacturing plant for the production of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Li-ion batteries are used in electric vehicles and the new plant is expected to supply batteries for more than 80,000 electric vehicles per year in the European Economic Area (EEA).

The project is expected to create more than 700 direct jobs in the Dolnoślaskie region, an area eligible for regional aid.

The commission assessed the aid measure under the Guidelines on Regional State Aid for 2014-2020, which enable member states to support economic development and employment in the EU’s less developed regions and to foster regional cohesion in the single market.

The commission found that without the public funding, the project would not have been carried out in Poland or any other EU country; the aid is limited to the minimum necessary to trigger the investment in Poland rather than outside the EEA; the investment aid will contribute to job creation as well as to the economic development and to the competitiveness of a disadvantaged region.

The commission concluded that the positive effects of the project on regional development clearly outweigh any distortion of competition brought about by the state aid.

LG Chem announced its intention to open the lithium-ion battery plant – which will be the largest of its kind in Europe – last year.

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) producers are slowly opening the US market’s door. As one example, Chinese electric carmaker GAC just introduced its new ENTRANZE EV concept at the Detroit Auto Show.

When Chinese EV Makers Go To US Auto Shows

After three consecutive years at the 2019 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, GAC showed its environmentally conscious ENTRANZE EV concept this year, according to Green Car Congress. Developed by the GAC Advanced Design Center in Los Angeles, the bullet-inspired ENTRANZE concept is a versatile 7-seat EV.

The versatile 7-person ENTRANZE EV is a multi-purpose utility vehicle that should be at home on road trips, beach cruises, mountain and forests rides, and deserts drives. It’s also hailed as a perfect daily commuter. It makes ample use of environmentally friendly materials, more than 90% sustainable materials we’re told. The interior is a 3+2+2 configuration with a front bench seat, sliding side doors, and rocker panels for easy access. Those rocker panels can be used as a bench for comfortable outdoor seating. The interior has a certain Californian feel with various materials, colors, and textures.

According to Yu Jun, president of GAC Motor: “Ultimately, automotive products are a means for people to connect during life’s great journey. The ENTRANZE concept embodies our vision to provide mobility solutions that enrich lives.”

GAC ENTRANZE EV Concept Is Autonomous Ready, Almost

The GAC ENTRANZE EV Concept sports an intuitive UX/UI system with plenty of OLED screens, much as the Byton M-Byte screens used to access features inside the vehicle. And it is nearly autonomous ready, meaning a few updates/upgrades will be available — well, if it wasn’t a concept. We’re told it has a unique steering wheel with an illuminated touch control system and a heads-up information cluster with voice-command activation.

Although futuristic by design, the ENTRANZE EV Concept has a practical 3-seat front row bench. GAC Motor included OLED screens on either side of the wave-inspired instrument panel. As a nod to aviation, they included a storage trolley that slides between the seats when needed.

GAC Motor Is Ready For Business In The US

GAC also announced that it registered its North American Sales Company in Irvine, California, as its regional headquarters, which will be responsible for branding, marketing, product planning, and financial affairs.

It also announced its GAC R&D Center Detroit, which has officially begun operation in Farmington Hills, Michigan. It will serve as a hub for R&D for US products and other overseas markets. It will connect GAC Motor’s two California R&D centers with its R&D centers in China.

The company also hinted at user-based insurance (UBI), which we are inquiring about. Stay tuned for more on the GAC ENTRANZE EV Concept, as it is just a few cities away from me.

Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing startup which claims over 550 million registered users, is deepening its focus on electric vehicles after it announced a joint venture with BAIC, a state-owned automotive giant.

‘Jingju’ — as the venture is called — is a partnership between Didi and BAIC affiliate Beijing Electric Vehicle that will develop “next-generation connected-car systems” using fleet management, AI and other tech, according to an announcement made today.

The exact scope of Jingju is not exactly clear from the details released so we’ve asked Didi for more information. We’ll update this post with more details as and when we get them.

Didi has long talked about plans to bring more environmentally-friendly vehicles into its fleet in line with efforts across China — Shenzhen, for example, has implemented electric taxis and buses. Back in late 2017, the company announced plans for its own EV charging network and, today, it claims that it has nearly 400,000 “new energy” vehicles on its platform. Didi says it clocked up 31 million registered drivers to date, so there’s obviously a lot of work to be done to raise the EV/hybrid representation.

But BAIC is an ideal partner to make that happen. Not only is it a key automaker in China but it has pledged to stop selling fuel-powered vehicles by 2025.

The joint venture is likely to tie into Didi’s existing driver services business, which helps drivers get access to services that include leasing and purchase financing, insurance, repairs, refueling, car-sharing and more. Essentially, with its huge army of drivers, Didi can get preferential rates from service providers, which means better deals for its drivers.

That, in turn, is helpful for recruiting new drivers and growing the business which is under threat because of new regulations that look set to limit the number of people who can drive for Didi.

Driven by an explosion of mobile and portable electronic devices, as well as the proliferation of drones and electric vehicles (EV), the research race is on to develop new lightweight materials for energy storage technology — specifically, materials with longer life and higher weight- and volumetric-based efficiencies. Carbon and composite materials have been integral components of energy storage systems for several decades, one notable example being graphitic carbon comprising anodes in lithium-ion batteries. The anodes generally consist of a carbon fiber composite manufactured with metal or metal oxides, coupled with polymer coating, barrier layers and some type of cathode, creating an electrical potential that causes electrons to flow through the circuit. Carbon fiber/polymer-matrix composites filled with conductive materials have also been go-to materials for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding used in a host of applications including aerospace, automotive and consumer electronics.

One emerging research approach in composites energy storage is minimization of the mass of batteries, fuel cells and capacitors via state-of-the-art materials, with the ultimate goal of increasing overall power densities. “One of the problems you have today is that about 50% of the weight of the battery can go to components that aren’t producing energy,” says Dr. Richard Collins, a senior technology analyst, IDTechEx (London, UK), which conducts independent market research on emerging technologies, including advanced materials.

In battery packs powering electric and hybrid vehicles, for example, one necessary component of a power system’s overall mass is the battery casing. “High-voltage batteries, which can be upwards of 1,000V for performance EVs, generate a lot of radio frequency noise,” says Simon Hiiemae, technical director at automotive heat management specialist Zircotec Group (Abingdon, UK). One way of protecting the sensitive control electronics integrated into EVs, Hiiemae notes, is to place the batteries in a metal box, usually aluminum, which acts as a Farraday cage to absorb electromagnetic field or radio frequency interference, either from the battery itself or surrounding sources; however, this adds substantial weight. Replacing metal with lightweight carbon fiber composites removes the weight, but most composites are transparent to radio frequency noise and do not provide the required level of interference protection.

Zircotec Group has introduced a solution to this technological dilemma: a conductive two-part coating system that can be easily applied to battery casings manufactured from either carbon fiber- or glass fiber-filled composite materials. The coating’s first layer, a thin aluminum alloy bond coat, is applied directly to the composite without any solvents or adhesives, and provides the conductivity required to shield the battery from interference. A second, ceramic layer is applied over the first metallic layer, protecting it from wear and corrosion; additionally, this ceramic layer can be modified to incorporate thermal-barrier protection, shielding the battery from external heat sources. Hiiemae reports that the coating is being tested by a number of vehicle manufacturers; he says the composite battery casing can save up to 4 kg/m2 in weight compared to aluminum.

Multifunctional materials

Also gaining traction in the energy storage industry is a structural laminate that can generate a current or store an electrical charge, an approach that attempts to integrate structural and electrical systems in power-consuming products. Such multi-functional materials, first proposed and explored in research largely targeting military and advanced aerospace applications more than 20 years ago, still face formidable technical challenges on the path to full commercialization. Nevertheless, over the last five to six years, tangible progress in the development of multifunctional materials has been reported on several fronts.

Composite structural supercapacitors (SSCs) show particular potential in the field, in part because of their relatively simple structure. An SSC stores energy via an electrostatic charge accumulation at the electrode/electrolyte interface, which is typically designed as a sandwich structure of two carbon, porous electrodes separated by a membrane and embedded in a liquid electrolyte with high ionic conductivity. Conventional commercial supercapacitors deliver high energy and power densities, long cycle life and reliable operation under a variety of temperatures and conditions. IDTechEx’s Collins says that while SSCs could one day be used to power trains or cars, the earliest commercial SSC application will likely be in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for military use. “SSCs integrated into UAVs could significantly extend range and operational time, a critical performance need,” Collins says. “Also, the first commercial SSCs will be expensive to build, so they will likely be most appropriate for a military type of project.”

An acceleration in the pace of multi-functional materials research is helping to push the technology toward commercialization. For example, an EU-funded project, SORCERER, is providing support for research into lightweight structural energy storage materials for electric and hybrid-electric aircraft. The project is aimed at developing advanced materials and technologies that can be used in both structural batteries and structural supercapacitors.

Another project involves the collaboration of a team of researchers at IMDEA Materials Institute (Getafe, Spain) with a number of aerospace partners from EU-funded programs like SORCERER, including Airbus. The team has demonstrated construction of a novel, electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) manufactured from thin sandwich structures. The structures are interleaves comprising carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber veils and an ionic, liquid-based polymer electrolyte between carbon fiber plies infused with an epoxy resin. Dr. Juan Jose Vilatela, multi-functional nanocomposites group, and one of the participants in the research, says the composites produced in the project are noteworthy for achieving high specific capacitance and power density of 88 mF/g and 30 Wh/kg respectively. This is one to three orders of magnitude higher than the best-performing structural materials. The material also has an energy density of 37.5 Wh/kg, currently one of the highest measured values of structural supercapacitors studied thus far.

Vilatela says CNTs come with the inherent advantage of a 1,000X greater surface area compared to carbon fiber fabrics. CNTs also have high electrochemical stability. To manufacture the EDLC composites, a layup constructed of a thin EDLC interleaf set between eight layers (4+4) of Hexcel (Stamford, CT, US) HexForce high-strength carbon fiber fabric, G0926, was vacuum infused with an epoxy vinyl ester resin, Derakane 8084, supplied by Ashland Chemical (Columbus, OH, US), with full curing occurring in 48 hours at room temperature. The interleaf consists of a sandwich structure comprising, from the middle out, a polymer electrolyte membrane approximately 100-120 microns thick, set between two CNT fiber sheets, both of which are affixed to thin aluminum current-collector plates (Fig. 1). The carbon nanotube fibers were synthesized by a direct spinning method using iron and sulfur catalysts and butane as a carbon source. See article “Aerocomposites: The move to multifunctionality” for more about IMDEA’s CNT fiber.

Prior to being positioned between the outer layers of carbon fiber fabric, a small amount of pressure is applied to the interleaf to execute impregnation of the soft electrolyte membrane into the porous CNT fiber sheets. Samples of the EDLC produced for this study were approximately 4 cm2 — the size of a typical laminate structural beam — although Vilatela says self-supporting EDLCs, which are made to be used without need for additional structural supports, can be produced in sizes as large as 100 cm2. In-situ electromechanical measurement of the EDLC samples during four-point bending tests show that electrochemical performance is retained up to the point of fracture. This test was a crucial performance validation of the material, given its application as both a structural and energy storage material.

The IMDEA group’s use of unidirectional CNT fabrics to construct the SSC distinguishes the project from similar concurrent work employing a variety of “activated” carbon fiber fabrics as energy-storage materials. One such project, cited in Vilatela’s, et al. paper published in Scientific Reports (February 2018), used an infusion technique to grow a high specific surface area carbon aerogel (CAG) around carbon fiber fabrics. Combined with an ethylene-glycol matrix containing 10% lithium ions, the technique produced a material with a calculated energy density of only 0.84 m Wh kg, which is low compared to the energy density achieved with EDLC comprising CNT fibers. The technique, specifically when using the high specific surface area CAG, produced a composite with a shear modulus of 895 MPa, which is comparable to traditional structural composites. The CNT composites in the IMDEA study, by comparison, had a flexural modulus of 60 GPa and a flexural strength of 153 MPa, values on par with a typical unfilled polyimide and below the strength and stiffness properties required for composites used in primary structural applications.

The results of each of these projects demonstrate, in broad brushstrokes, one of the challenges facing the attempt to develop fully commercial, multifunctional materials suitable for a broad range of applications: namely, it is difficult to build composites with adequate electrical and structural properties.

Collins thinks the current tradeoff between structural and electrical properties will not be a major barrier to the adoption and commercialization of the technology. “I don’t think the fall-off in structural properties in some of these new composite energy-storing materials will be a factor limiting their usefulness,” he says, “because even if you have a slightly worse performing carbon fiber reinforcement, it will still have enough strength and stiffness to be useful in certain applications.” A potentially bigger issue, he believes, is the question of how to design and mechanically integrate solid polymer electrodes and electrically insulating but ionically conductive separators. Additional challenges include cost-effective manufacturing and safety.

IDTechEx has researched and rated the technological readiness level (TRL) of a variety of multi-functional polymer composites (Fig. 2). The rating system is based on a range of criteria, including whether the research is still mostly academic (which produces a low rating), whether the technology is being prototyped or tested (producing a higher rating), or if the technology is reaching commercialization (highest rating). The data mining reveals that multi-functional materials for energy storage and energy harvesting are, based on IDTechEx’s criteria, still in a relatively early stage of development — slightly ahead of self-healing materials and fully embedded circuitry, but falling behind power transmission and embedded sensors. “When you look at the electrodes of SSCs, for example, one of the challenges is how to improve the surface area appropriately,” Collins notes. “CNTs show promise, but there’s still a ways to go to prove it commercially.”

Automotive energy technology leading the way

In automotive racing, however, the future in advanced materials energy storage is already here. Cars manufactured for the Formula E circuit, the first fully electric FIA racing series, running since 2014, are powered with advanced, multifunctional composite, 800V structural batteries. The battery technology was developed and manufactured by Williams Advanced Engineering (Grove, UK), the sole supplier of batteries for cars built for the Formula E grid. The typical Formula E car has about 250 Hp (190 kW), can accelerate from 0 to 100 kmh (0 to 62 mph) in 3 seconds, and has a maximum speed of 225 km/h (140 mph). See CW’s November 2018 Focus on Design story, “Pushing EVs forward,” for more information on Williams Advanced Engineering’s structural battery systems for consumer vehicles such as the battery electric FW-EVX.

On another front, Hyundai Motor Group (Seoul, South Korea) is employing hydrogen fuel cell technology supplied by SGL Group (Wiesbaden, Germany) to manufacture its zero-emission car NEXO. The production car caps years of development work and cooperation between the car manufacturer and SGL, during which Hyundai optimized the hydrogen-powered drive train and other components on its iX35 demonstration fuel-cell car. Since commencing production in March 2018, Hyundai has reported selling an average of about 45 units a month, a pace, if it holds, which would culminate with sales of over 500 units in 2018, a new single-year sales record for a hydrogen fuel-cell car.

The core of the technology in the NEXO is the SIGRACET fuel cell, a polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) developed and sold by SGL. The PEMFC generates electrochemical power by converting hydrogen fuel into electricity, with heat and water as the only byproducts. A single PEMFC cell consists of two flowfields, comprising two gas diffusion layers (GDLs) and two carbon-supported noble metal catalyst layers, each separated by a proton exchange membrane (Fig. 3). The GDLs are, in turn, a bilayer structure that consists of a macro-porous backing material (carbon fiber paper) and a micro-porous carbon-based layer. The membrane electrode assemblies are built as a layered laminate wherein one GDL acts as the anode and the other GDL layer performs as the cathode. The PEMFC is sandwiched between two bipolar plates (BPP) made from graphite, coated steel or titanium. The BPPs form the structural components of the stack and are designed with channels to accommodate coolant flow and water outlet. Automotive PEMFC systems typically consist of stacks of up to 400 cells with a power output of around 80 to 120 kW.

Composites in energy storage are progressing, but making cleaner, lighter energy sources a large-scale reality will depend on working out the details in advanced technologies such as fuel cells, structural batteries and structural supercapacitors.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) revised the Regulations and Standards over Lithium-ion Battery Industry and the Interim Measures on the Administration of the Lithium-ion Battery Industry, SMM learned from the official website.

The revision, effective from February 15, 2019, aims to promote the healthy development of the Li-ion battery sector.

Higher standards for quality inspections over battery materials would be required. This is likely to improve the quality of motive batteries in new energy vehicles.

Companies whose production in the previous year came in below 50% of its capacity are not qualified to apply for expanding capacity. This is set to help improve the capacity utilisation rates across the sector.

Companies capacble of independently producing and selling Li-ion battery-related products and provide relevant services are required to spend no less than 3% of its operating revenue on research and development.

Companies are encouraged to obtain the qualification of new high-tech enterprises or provincial-level and above research and technology centers.