According to the European Energy Storage Technology Development Roadmap towards 2030 (EASE/EERA) energy storage will be of the greatest importance for the European climate energy objectives. The Sintbat project aims at the development of a cheap energy efficient and effectively maintenance free lithium-ion based energy storage system offering in-service time of 20 to 25 years. Insights gained from advanced in-situ and in-operando analysis methods will be used for multi scale modelling targeting on the simulation of aging mechanisms for a reliable lifetime prediction and enhancement. In addition, the latest generation of anode materials based on silicon as well as a prelithiation process for lifetime enhancement will be implemented in the cell manufacturing process. The implementation of high energy materials combined with a low cost and environmental benign aqueous cathode manufacturing process will lead to remarkable cell costs reduction down to 130 € per kWh. This will enable battery based storage system for an economic reasonable price of less than 400 € per kWh (CAPEX) and will lower the OPEX down to less than 0.09 € per stored kWh for the targeted in-service time of 20 to 25 years (10,000 cycles). The technical developments will be supported by the set-up of a relevant roadmap as well as a catalogue for good practice. To guarantee the highest possible impact for the European economy the Sinbat consortium installed an Industrial Advisory Board including various European battery material suppliers, cell manufacturer and end-users whereby the whole value added chain in this way is completed within the Sintbat project. This strong interaction of the Sintbat consortium with relevant stakeholders in the European energy economy will assure that battery based energy storage systems are becoming an economic self-sustaining technology.

After the successful project Sintbat, this project aims to continue the effort with the modified objectives of LC-BAT-2-2019. This new call moves the focus to a new KPI, the cycle related costs per energy: €/kWh/cycle. It very well reflects the real need of the customers if a minimum volumetric energy density is added. An extended LCA, cradle-to-grave will be setup to judge the environmental impact of the different options and to choose the best. To show the both ECO-aspects (ECOlogical and ECOnomical) of our project the acronym ECO²LIB was created. Especially for the deployment of advanced battery systems, time to market is an important factor. This criterion is helpful to select between the different electrochemical systems: - Lithium-Sulphur: is heavily investigated, but up to now doesn’t show a break-through to reach acceptable cycle life - Lithium-Air: For this system, many major problems are known to be solved, like Li metal protection, dendrite growth, cleaned air inlet, oxygen-stability of the catholyte - Zinc-Air: is better, but this system, as all Metal-Air systems, will never lead to a maintenance-free battery - All-Solid-State: has a chance in the polymer version, but rather not in oxidic or sulfidic version - Sodium-Ion: can be potentially interesting for large-scale storage due to cost advantages (replacing Cu with Al), but is still held back due to the lack of a useful and stable anode material and a complex surface chemistry - Organic-based systems: can be potentially interesting for large-scale storage due to potential sustainability impacts, but have problems regarding energy density (especially volumetric), cycling stability, and materials degradation Consequently, the consortium decided to continue the improvement of the well-established Lithium-Ion system with advanced materials, methods and corresponding recycling-concept. So it will be possible to directly exploit the results of ECO²LIB in an IPCEI project, which is under preparation.

Today’s battery development is impeded by a lack of virtualization, resulting in cost-and time-intensive physical verification and validation (V&V) activities. AccCellBaT addresses these shortcomings by substantially advancing virtualization, front-loading, and continuous V&V in future technology battery development to optimize battery design, cost, and time-to-market. Focusing on beyond state-of-the-art cell chemistry, novel physics-based and data-driven simulation models are developed to determine performance, lifetime, reliability, and safety of battery sub-systems. To ensure model applicability and high confidence, these models are accompanied by novel in-live model parameter measurement techniques, and by upscaling methods to scale cell models up to battery system models. Models and measurement data are synthesized to digital twins to be utilized in V&V. To advance front-loading, tests of these digital twins are merged with physical tests in a novel hybrid design verification and validation plan (hybrid DVP) methodology. To objectively quantify and ensure the confidence of test results, a tailored confi-dence index methodology for approval of the hybrid DVP is introduced. Based on Systems Engineering principles, processes and methods currently used by AccCellBaT consortium members are combined with the hybrid DVP and optimized to create a process-and-method manual applicable for future battery development. These building blocks of the full AccCellBaT methodology are implemented in a development tool, which provides an inte-grated development environment for management, planning and execution of battery V&V. The tool supports practitioners in development and significantly increases the level of process automation.To ensure validity and applicability of the AccCellBaT methodology across industries, the methodology is validated by two original equipment manufacturers (representing via automotive and stationary application a crucial share on battery system market).

As of today, Europe remains not competitive in terms of Lithium battery cell development and especially manufacturing. This lack of competence and competitiveness could quickly spiral down into a complete loss of this key technology for electrification in the EU. Thus IMAGE will significantly contribute to sustainably develop the European Li-battery cell manufacturing competence and capability by creating a competitive, production-oriented research & development framework within Europe. A realistic and well-documented roadmap towards the manufacturing of cost-effective and competitive battery cells within Europe will emerge. This will be enforced by establishing a distributed battery cell production base that will be able, after careful upscaling of production, to supply the now burgeoning electric vehicle industry. From this context, the main goal of IMAGE is to push European’s Li-battery industry and academia to take over a leading role in the development and manufacturing of Next Generation Li-Ion cells. IMAGE has the following major objectives: 1) Develop generic production techniques for next generation battery cells based on high specific energy Li-metal battery cells. This will include a modular development approach that will be easy to up-scale while remaining flexible and safer to replace in case of any contingencies and market/ manufacturer configuration changes. 2) Identify energy and resource efficient cell manufacturing technologies and assets tailored to the existent European industrial infrastructure. This will include the identification of bottleneck factors and challenges that could be addressed in the present European industrial context. 3) Develop a progressive, multiple-tier technological and production framework that is able to cope with the inherent technological changes and advancements characteristic to this dynamic field. Thus, there will be several technologies covered by IMAGE, each having different technological maturity level.

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.