Knowledge-based improvements of Li-ion battery cost, performance, recyclabiKnowledge-based improvements of Li-ion battery cost, performance, recyclability and safety are needed to enable electric vehicles to rapidly gain market share and reduce CO2 emissions. SPIDER’s advanced, low-cost (75 €/kWh by 2030) battery technology is predicted to bring energy density to ~ 450 Wh/kg by 2030 and power density to 800 W/kg. It operates at a lower, and thus safer, voltage, which enables the use of novel, highly conductive and intrinsically safe liquid electrolytes. Safety concerns will be further eliminated (or strongly reduced), as thermal energy dissipation will be reduced to 4 kW/kg, and thermal runaway temperature increased to over 200°C. Moreover, SPIDER overcomes one of the main Li-ion ageing mechanisms for silicon based anodes: notably, the loss of cyclable lithium, which should increase lifetime to 2000 cycles by 2022 for first life applications with further usefulness up to 5000 cycles in second life (stationary energy storage). In addition, SPIDER’s classic cell manufacturing process with liquid electrolyte will be readily transferable to industry, unlike solid electrolyte designs, which still require the development of complex manufacturing processes. Finally, SPIDER batteries will be designed to be 60% recyclable by weight, and a dedicated recycling process will be developed and evaluated during SPIDER. In addition, SPIDER materials significantly reduce the use of critical raw materials. Finally, four SPIDER partners are identified by the European Battery Alliance as central and strategic for the creation of the needed European battery value chain: SGL, NANO, VMI & SOLVAY. In conclusion, SPIDER proposes a real breakthrough in battery chemistry that can be readily adopted within a sustainable, circular economy by a competitive, European battery value chain to avoid foreign market dependence and to capture the emerging 250 billion € battery market in Europe.

The project main goal is to develop new generation batteries for battery storage with a modular technology, suitable for different applications and fulfilling the increasing need of decentralised energy production and supply for private households and industrial robotised devices.. New materials and components will be developed and optimised to achieve longer lifetime (up to 10,000 cycles depending on the material selected), lower costs (down to 0.03 €/kWh/cycle), improved safety and more efficient recycling (>50%). The expected results will strengthen EU competitiveness in advanced materials and nanotechnologies and the related battery storage value chain, preparing European industry to be competitive in these new markets. This will be achieved by using high capacity anodes coupled with cobalt free cathode and with a very safe gel polymer electrolyte separator, leveraging partners’ knowledge in advanced materials. This new technology will be developed up to a TRL 6 (large prismatic cell ESP-Cell 30Ah) at the end of the project, producing these novel high voltage high capacity batteries close to practical applications. Further, the proposed solution will allow Europe to become more independent from raw material and the feasibility of a metal recovery process will be deeply investigated and recommendations for future application will be made. To achieve the ambitious targets, the CoFBAT project covers the entire value chain, bringing together industrial experts in material development and battery science together with engineering companies and institutes and battery producers and integrators.

The main idea of POROUS4APP project is based on the fabrication of functional nanoporous carbonaceous materials at pilot plant scale from natural resources (polysaccharide). The process for nanoporous carbon fabrication is already well known as one of the POROUS4APP partner has developed the STARBON® technology at TRL5 which consist of swelling, drying and pyrolysis of natural resources and in this case Starch. What POROUS4APP project will bring to the European community is the development of new metal/metal-oxide doped-nanoporous carbonaceous materials based on a known technology. This technology needs to be upscaled and modified to enable a full flexibility of the material characteristics to be applied to various industrial applications. The use of abundant renewable resources like starch has been proven to be a low cost and reliable raw material source for industrial production of carbonaceous materials having porosity in the nanometer range. In POROUS4APP it will be intended to produce not only carbonaceous nanoporous materials but carbonaceous material with enhanced functionality by using impregnation and sol/gel strategy. This will allow POROUS4APP materials to reach the challenging requirements of state of the art high added value materials at lower cost for applications in energy storage such as lithium-ion battery and also in chemical catalysis process. These applications need materials with well defined porosity to reach high efficiency level of their functional systems.

This proposal describes the third core project of the Graphene Flagship. It forms the fourth phase of the FET flagship and is characterized by a continued transition towards higher technology readiness levels, without jeopardizing our strong commitment to fundamental research. Compared to the second core project, this phase includes a substantial increase in the market-motivated technological spearhead projects, which account for about 30% of the overall budget. The broader fundamental and applied research themes are pursued by 15 work packages and supported by four work packages on innovation, industrialization, dissemination and management. The consortium that is involved in this project includes over 150 academic and industrial partners in over 20 European countries.

The ambition of INSTABAT is to monitor in operando key parameters of a Li-ion battery cell, in order to provide higher accuracy States of Charge, Health, Power, Energy and Safety (SoX) cell indicators, and thus allowing to improve the safety and the Quality, Reliability and Life (QRL) of batteries. To achieve this goal, INSTABAT will develop a proof of concept of smart sensing technologies and functionalities, integrated into a battery cell and capable of: • performing reliable in operando monitoring (time- and space-resolved) of key parameters (temperature and heat flow; pressure; strain; Li+ concentration and distribution; CO2 concentration; “absolute” impedance, potential and polarization) by means of: (i) four embedded physical sensors (optical fibers with Fiber Bragg Grating and luminescence probes, reference electrode and photo-acoustic gas sensor), (ii) two virtual sensors (based on electro-chemical and thermal reduced models), • correlating the evolution of these parameters with the physico-chemical degradation phenomena occurring at the heart of the battery cell, • improving the battery functional performance and safety, thanks to enhanced BMS algorithms providing in real-time higher accuracy SoX cell indicators (taking the measured and estimated parameters into consideration). Main results will be: (1) proof of concept of multi-sensor platform (cell prototype equipped with physical/virtual sensors, and associated BMS algorithms providing SoX cell indicators in real-time); (2) demonstration of higher accuracy for SoX cell indicators; (3) demonstration of improvement of cell functional performance and safety through two use cases for EV applications; (4) techno-economic feasibility study (manufacturability, adaptability to other cell technologies...). INSTABAT smart cells will open new horizons to improve cell use and performances (e.g. by reducing ageing, allowing the decrease of safety margins, triggering self-healing, facilitating second life, etc.).