Five Volt Lithium Ion Batteries with Silicon Anodes produced for Next Generation Electric Vehicles

Project Information

FIVEVB

Grant agreement ID: 653531

DOI

10.3030/653531

Project closed

EC signature date 14 April 2015

Start date 1 May 2015

End date 30 April 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 5 927 428,75

EU contribution

€ 5 673 272,50

Coordinated by

AVL LIST GMBH
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FIVEVB (Five Volt Lithium Ion Batteries with Silicon Anodes produced for Next Generation Electric Vehicles)

Reporting period: 2016-11-01 to 2018-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The FiveVB project developed a new cell technology based on innovative materials such as high capacity anodes,
high voltage cathodes and stable, safe and environmentally friendly electrolytes. Since main European industry
partners representing the value chain from materials supplier to car manufacturer are involved, this program supports
and enables the development of a strong and competitive European battery industry. The multidisciplinary
project team assures not only early technology integration between materials, cells, batteries and application
requirements, but also a subsequent industrialization of the developed technology. With an integrated trans-disciplinary
cell development approach an early feedback loop from battery and vehicle level to material
suppliers and a feed-forward of relevant information to industrial scale cell production is established. Through an iterative and
holistic approach two generations of cell chemistries (anode, cathode, binder and electrolyte) are evaluated and
optimized to improve electrochemical performance of active materials and related new cell technology in terms of
energy density, lifetime, safety and costs. Furthermore, an early development and validation of test
procedures for the reduction of development time from material to cell is established. Among
other objectives, in particular the lifetime and aging aspects are addressed in the framework of FiveVB, but also input for
future European and International standardization are provided.

One major result of FiveVB is a hard case prismatic cell in PHEV1 format, developed according to automotive requirements and produced on a
representative prototype facility. The respective scale-up of anode, cathode, and electrolyte is performed successfully.
Due to constraints during this scale-up a non-prelithiated anode material is included in the PHEV1 cell.
During the manufacturing process, the impact of swelling (variation of cell thickness upon charging / discharging) turns out to be one of the
main driving factors that need to be understood for future advanced Li-ion cell manufacturing. For increasing the knowledge and for
enhancing future development efforts, via the round table approach a set of methodologies (both experimental and on simulation basis) is established.
Due to these issues during manufacturing, not the full test plan as anticipated in the original workplan could be covered.
These gaps were successfully filled with test results on pouch cell level on one hand and simulation methodology support on the other hand.
The cycle life (tested on pouch cell level) of the new cell technology is limited and given the current maturity below the target of 2000 cycles; however there is no
fundamental technological obstacle for increasing this cycle life further via subsequent development steps.
A validation against pre-defined requirements clearly demonstrate that an increase (significantly) beyond 20% energy density and - mainly based on that energy density increase -
a cost reduction of 20% is feasible.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first reporting period of the Project the consortium was focusing on the development of the respective materials for the FiveVB cell. Initially the cell requirements were elaborated. In addition to that the test protocols tailored to the novel cell technology have been defined and an economical assessment has been performed.
The development of the battery cell materials (anode, cathode and electrolyte) started with a pre-defined baseline (‘Generation 0 materials’) and was later on further elaborated in subsequent development steps (‘Generation 1 materials’ -> ‘Generation 2 materials’). Generation 0 and Generation 1 materials were assembled and tested on pouch cell level. Generation 2 pouch cell development is currently under progress. The Generation 1 cells featured compared to Generation 0 improved energy density, rate capability and low temperature behaviour; the cycling behaviour for Generation 1 was worse compared to Generation 0 cells. In terms of dissemination a homepage for the FiveVB project was set online. Moreover, a first brochure has been elaborated for dissemination to selected stakeholders.

The second reporting period was focusing on the manufacturing of the large scale cell (PHEV1 format). The scale-up of anode, cathode, and electrolyte was performed successfully. The manufacturing was performed according to an adapted workplan,
taking into consideration arising constraints during the second project phase (e.g. utilization of non-prelithiated anode and increased testing efforts due to the swelling topic). A Lifecycle assessment was performed according to workplan. Due to constraints during manufacturing the produced PHEV1 cells could not be delivered according to workplan (ageing tests and live module assembly). As a contingency ageing model parameterization was performed with pouch cells, given their higher maturity compared to the newly manufactured PHEV1 cells. A non-funcional dummy module was assembled for demonstration purposes of the system components in use. However, with the available PHEV1 test results a first-principle validation of the system against the requirements was performed. A more detailed investigation of the performance characteristics was performed by means of simulation.

As the swelling effect (variation of cell thickness during operation) turned out to be a key factor for a better understanding on manufacturing of future advanced Li-ion cells, this topic was tackled in-depth by a roundtable approach, that identified methodologies (simulation & experiments) for a better understanding of this phenomenon.
In the framework of the TRA 2018 the GV1-2014 consortia eCaiman, SPiCY, and FiveVB were jointly organizing a workshop ('Next generation of competitive Li-ion batteriesto meet customer expectations – made in Europe') in April 2018; an overview of the achievements of the consortia in the fields of cell chemistry research, manufacturing, and industrialization was given. Moreover, two booths were organized and set up (again in common with all three GV1 consortia) where demonstrators were shown and explained to the visitors of the TRA 2018.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The work within the FiveVB-consortium is carried out in a very interactive way. From material researcher to the OEM all consortium members are coming together on a round table, share their experiences and results as well as the issues that they are facing during their development work. By means of such a development approach, developers at every stage of the value chain obtain feedback on their work in a very fast and efficient way, and can adapt their efforts towards the need of other partners. With the help of the FiveVB workflow established in the project a competition advantage compared to other regions in the world (regarding battery cell production in particular Asia) can be achieved.
From technical point of view the FiveVB technology will lead to higher energy densities at lower cost. By focusing on the topic of E-mobility, this will yield a higher range at lower cost for Electric car drivers. As a consequence of that, the market acceptance of Electric Vehicles will strongly increase. However, the development of industrial scale production techniques for the novel cell materials and cells will be crucial for establishing battery cell production in Europe for meeting the Electric vehicle market demand in terms of cost, efficiency and quality.

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