The Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research (ISC) in Würzburg, Germany have started a three-year joint research project with Empa in Dübendorf, Switzerland, to develop production-ready next generation traction batteries for electric cars.
Fraunhofer ISC is providing process development expertise in lithium conducting polymers as well as on the development of protective layers of sol-gel materials, as well as the battery cell production technology and will produce the first prototypes for the Interface Engineering for Safe and Sustainable High-Performance Batteries (IE4B) project.
The project also includes German chemical company Heraeus, Swiss mechanical engineers ABB and the Bühler Group, US semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials and battery maker Varta. The project is also part of a drive to reduce the dependence of the European electric car industry on batteris from Asian suppliers who currently dominate production.
Solid state batteries do not require flammable liquid electrolytes and so have significantly improved operational reliability. They also provide advantages in terms of size and weight, because less complex safety housing is required. In addition, the use of metallic anode material (lithium) instead of the graphite anodes commonly used today in solid-state batteries promises both higher energy density and significantly shorter charging times.
While the individual components (anode, cathode, electrolyte) of future solid state batteries have already been well investigated in the laboratory, the challenge is to integrate them into a stable integrated system. It is important to achieve a long service life with high performance over as many charging and discharging cycles as possible, in order to outperform today's conventional battery systems.
EMPA will develop the solid state electrolytes as well as focussing on the production and characterization of thin films with customized electronic properties, and the development of nanostructured anode materials. The first phase deals with basic aspects and uses battery model systems manufactured using thin-film methods at Empa and ISC. In this first phase, the processes taking place at the interfaces between cathode, solid state electrolyte and anode are to
