Post-Li-ion technologies and relevant manufacturing techniques for mobility applications (Generation 5) (Batt4EU Partnership)

Proposals should address improvements in sustainable materials designs[[The future Commission initiative for Safe and Sustainable by Design [Reference to updated industrial research site on Europa.eu to be added which will link to the relevant Commission documents. Already available ‘Review of safety and sustainability dimensions, aspects, methods, indicators, and tools’, under consultation ‘Framework for the definition of criteria and evaluation procedure for chemicals and materials’.] will set a framework for assessing safety and sustainability of chemicals and materials and should be considered as a baseline for proposals.]] to reach the manufacturability and high safety of the selected technology.

Successful projects are expected to cover at least three of the following bullet points:

• Improvement of materials:
  • Scalable and manufacturable surface coating materials for metallic anode protection and/or activation (e.g. CVD, PLD, ALD…) to increase safety and cycle life.
  • Binders with high chemical and thermal stability to reduce toxicity and enable the use of water-based manufacturing processes.
  • Design and development of new cell technologies with higher capacities compared to Li-ion cells.
  • Improve and increase the electrodes-electrolyte compatibility with additives to increase over cell time.
  • Improve the understanding of the chemical and/or electrochemical reaction mechanisms using advanced techniques in the cells for Gen5 technologies developed.
  • Improve the insertion cathode with high charge-storage capacity.
  • Use of safe and non-toxic materials.
  • New efficient and sustainable catalysts that can promote polysulfide conversion in Metal-S batteries or the oxygen evolution/reduction reactions in rechargeable Metal-air batteries.
• Design and manufacturing:
  • Innovative cell design ensuring high performances, low cost and ready for recycling.
  • Develop relevant manufacturing processes and assess the possible manufacturing compatibility with the existing lithium-ion production infrastructure and production lines.
  • Proof of concept possibly at small pilot line scale.
  • Design production with low environmental impact, safe and healthy environment for workers, low energy consumption.

Projects are encouraged to demonstrate also techno-economic suitability of the solution for other emerging markets, such as motive power for off-road applications, or energy storage applications.

Plans for the exploitation and dissemination of results for proposals submitted under this topic should include a strong business case and sound exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination. The exploitation plans should include preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation and deployment (feasibility study, business plan).

Projects are expected to collaborate and contribute to the activities of the Coordination and Support Action defined under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2022-D2-01-08, including the definition of a long-term research roadmap for this topic.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.