Manufacturing

An increase in battery performance can also be achieved by improving the manufacturing process by studying the effects these processes have on the structure and electrochemistry of the materials. Tailoring battery manufacturing processes such as mixing, coating, drying, calendaring, and formation will enable the production of battery electrodes with desirable properties. Despite the inherent advantage of understanding the manufacturing processes, there has been little research into the fundamental chemistry – the group is aiming to ‘drill’ down into these processes and use this research to drive innovation in manufacturing. If a small improvement can be made at each manufacturing stage, battery performance can be increased and cost reduced, overall it will ‘unlock’ a significant improvement in the technology.

 Projects Include:

IDMBAT

Partners:

Granta (Ansys), Intellegens, University of Birmingham


Project costs:

Total project costs: £498,587

Grant contribution: £369,249

Dates:

Sep 2019 – Nov 2020

Funding body:

Innovate UK

Executive summary:

The IDMBAT project is aiming to develop software solutions for battery manufacturers to reduce fabrication and development costs while improving key batteries metrics. This aim will be achieved by combining the proven benefits of a systematic, enterprise approach to materials information, with new AI capabilities for predicting optimum process parameters from complex interdependencies between materials, processes and function. The project endeavours to:

  • De-risk scaling up innovative technologies across the battery manufacturing value chain (cell materials, manufacturing processes) through intelligent, systematic information data management.
  • Remove some technical and commercial barriers to cell manufacture in the UK (advancement in battery metrics improvement, reduced costs of trials and experimentation).
  • Support the overall goal of the Faraday Battery Challenge to make the UK the go-to place for the research, development, scale-up and industrialisation of cutting-edge battery.  

External website:

Intelligent enterprise Data Management platform for BATtery manufacturing - IDMBAT (or HESTIA) - UK Research and Innovation

Nextrode - Electrode Manufacturing

Partners:

University of Oxford, University of Birmingham, University College London, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton,  University of Warwick, and 6 industrial collaborators.

Value:

~£12 million

Dates:

October 2019 - September 2023

Funding body:

The Faraday Institution

Executive summary:

The Next Generation Electrode (Nextrode) project aims to understand the underlying reasons why current Li-ion battery electrode performance falls well short of theory, and use this to develop novel approaches to electrode design that are scalable and attractive to industry.

At Birmingham, and in collaboration with UCL and Southampton, work will in particular concern the impact of slurry properties (e.g. rheology) and manufacturing conditions on the complex structure of electrodes. By quantifying these relationships and applying novel metrologies, a predictive approach to developing optimised electrodes will be developed.

External website:

Electrode Manufacturing - The Faraday Institution

SCALE-Up

Partners:

Talga Technologies Ltd, Pv3 Technologies Ltd, WMG, University of Birmingham

Funded Value:

£956,424

Funded Period:

Mar 18 - Aug 20 (incl. 3-month extension granted by UKRI due to Covid-19)

Funding body:

Innovate UK

Summary:

Supply Chain Accelerator for Li-ion Electrode materials in UK (SCALE-Up).

This project aims to solve one of the key issues of the supply chain for battery manufacture in the UK; material supply. Material manufacturing is essential if we are to maximise the research and development outputs from the UK research base, and commercialise new battery technologies. As part of this project we will seek to establish a supply chain and route to market for existing and novel battery materials. This will create a novel cell chemistry based upon improvements of a known anode and cathode (graphite and NMC). Scale-up of the materials manufacturing will enable the scale-up of a high energy lithium ion battery, and will lead to further advancement in knowledge for materials manufacture and cell manufacture.

The quality and control of battery materials is essential for consistency of electrodes and inherently the good performance of a lithium ion battery. Ensuring a good quality material supply, with a good heritage, will support the move to manufacturing batteries in the UK. This project will look to demonstrate the UK's potential capability in this field, ultimately assisting to advance the UK's competitive position in battery cell technologies and production, and importantly, the transition to a low-carbon economy.

SUPErB

Partners:

QinetiQ (Lead), Echion Technologies Ltd, University College London, University of Birmingham, William Blythe.

Project costs:

Total project costs: £1,914,102

Grant contribution: £1,400,036

Dates:

Sep 2019 – May 2021 (incl. 3-month extension granted by UKRI due to Covid-19)


Funding body:

Innovate UK


Executive summary:

Scalable Ultra-Power Electric-vehicle Batteries (SUPErB). Combining the power and cycle-life benefits of a supercapacitor with the energy benefits of a Li-ion cell.

One of the challenges for electric vehicles is to meet peak power requirements. Existing high-peak-power devices, such as supercapacitors, suffer from low energy densities and the SUPErB project aims to lift this limitation using advanced electrode materials and Li-ion battery engineering. The ultrahigh- power cells for electric vehicle batteries that the SUPErB project will develop will have very high peak power handling capability and the SUPErB project will demonstrate, for the first time, 10 kW.kg-1 and 40 Wh.kg-1 at the cell level. This will enable improved peak-power handling in EV main traction batteries. Spin-off applications are numerous with the technology finding use in fast charge stations and transport, UPS and military applications. 

External website:

Scalable Ultra-Power Electric-vehicle Batteries (SUPErB) - UK Research and Innovation