AMAPOLA will foster the developments achieved in the FET-Open SALBAGE project, towards real applications and towards market. The focus will be put in turning the promising research results obtained in SALBAGE into genuine technological innovations demonstrating that Al-S based batteries can have a place in certain market niches as a new future technology on batteries. The project is founded in the combination of sulfur and aluminium in a battery, what is especially attractive because of the very high abundance of both elements. The Al-S cell has the potential to store very high energy, and very high prospective values of energy density of 660 Wh/l and specific energy of 400 Wh/kg are calculated at a cell level, taking advantage of the incorporation of novel solid Polymer Gel Electrolytes (PGEs) based on novel highly conductive and inexpensive Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES) for a cheaper, lighter, tougher and safer battery concept. In AMAPOLA project the focus will be put in: 1- further develop the materials proposed in SALBAGE with special emphasis in (i) the preparation of controlled-phase gel electrolytes from highly conductive novel DES; (ii) the development of advanced cathode formulations to achieve high sulfur loading and high sulfur utilisation in the cathode in combination with new promising redox mediators and (iii) strategies to overcome the presence of oxide layer in the aluminium anode. 2- in up-scaling and extrapolation towards real application 3- pre-industrialization and market aspects. To succeed in the high demanding tasks, most part of the former consortium that have shown outstanding competence and remarkable level of commitment in SALBAGE is present in AMAPOLA together with a world recognised battery company and an SME expert in IPR managent and transfer to market.

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.).

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.

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.