Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LIBERTY (LIghtweight Battery System for Extended Range at Improved SafeTY)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-06-30
Imagine that you drive your electric vehicle from San-Sebastian to Barcelona, from Stuttgart to Brussels or from Eindhoven to Paris without the need of recharging along the way. Then have it quickly charged again without fear of eating into the battery’s remaining life.
At present this could cause some issues – that’s where LIBERTY steps in:
Design an electric vehicle battery that offers 500 km of range before ultra-fast recharging in just 18 minutes – and all this combined with a battery life expectancy in excess of 300.000 km.
These are only some of the challenges that the European project LIBERTY, led by the Basque technology centre IKERLAN, will address along with 15 additional European partners ranging from Universities providing fundamental research, leading technology giants, TIER suppliers, up through the OEM level. Mercedes-Benz AG, one of the partners of this strategic Horizon 2020 EU project for sustainable mobility, will integrate the batteries developed by LIBERTY in one of its electric vehicles in order to demonstrate the technological feasibility of all LIBERTY innovations.
The project aims to develop batteries that will have the same useful life as those of current combustion engines, i.e. up to 20 years or 300 000 km. At present, the lifetime of an electric battery is typically lower, with guarantees of up to 10 years and around 150 000 km, while consuming up to 50% of the vehicle’s cost.
The batteries to be developed in LIBERTY will provide a range increase of up to 25%, thus allowing driving up to 500 km without the need for recharging. And once recharging does become necessary, this can be accomplished in a mere 18 minutes, less than half the time under contemporary technologies.
Improved and standardized battery safety / sustainability will serve other important aspects addressed by this project. To ensure that the valuable battery does not have to be disposed immediately after its useful life, a second useful life is already being designed, where demands on fast-charging weight and energy density prove less important. Here they could be re-purposed to support a photovoltaic park or to store the energy generated in the solar panels of an urban building, for instance.
At present this could cause some issues – that’s where LIBERTY steps in:
Design an electric vehicle battery that offers 500 km of range before ultra-fast recharging in just 18 minutes – and all this combined with a battery life expectancy in excess of 300.000 km.
These are only some of the challenges that the European project LIBERTY, led by the Basque technology centre IKERLAN, will address along with 15 additional European partners ranging from Universities providing fundamental research, leading technology giants, TIER suppliers, up through the OEM level. Mercedes-Benz AG, one of the partners of this strategic Horizon 2020 EU project for sustainable mobility, will integrate the batteries developed by LIBERTY in one of its electric vehicles in order to demonstrate the technological feasibility of all LIBERTY innovations.
The project aims to develop batteries that will have the same useful life as those of current combustion engines, i.e. up to 20 years or 300 000 km. At present, the lifetime of an electric battery is typically lower, with guarantees of up to 10 years and around 150 000 km, while consuming up to 50% of the vehicle’s cost.
The batteries to be developed in LIBERTY will provide a range increase of up to 25%, thus allowing driving up to 500 km without the need for recharging. And once recharging does become necessary, this can be accomplished in a mere 18 minutes, less than half the time under contemporary technologies.
Improved and standardized battery safety / sustainability will serve other important aspects addressed by this project. To ensure that the valuable battery does not have to be disposed immediately after its useful life, a second useful life is already being designed, where demands on fast-charging weight and energy density prove less important. Here they could be re-purposed to support a photovoltaic park or to store the energy generated in the solar panels of an urban building, for instance.
Until the second reporting period (M30) LIBERTY project has been focused on the definition of system and component level requirements, design of components as well as manufacturing. These are the main key achievements until the M30 of the project:
• Design criteria, requirements and validation plan definition.
• Battery design freeze.
• Cell-level electric, thermal and mechanical characterisation test definition, execution and modelling.
• Cell arrangement definition and battery system mechanical design.
• Immersion cooling based thermal management system design and testing.
• Active safety system design simulation and testing.
• 800 V HV electric subsystem design and implementation.
• Solid state main switch design, implementation and testing.
• Low power pressure sensor design, implementation and testing.
• BMS hardware demonstrators’ development.
• SOC algorithm development and validation.
• Aging tests protocols for cycling and calendar life, inlcuding fast-charging strategy.
• Thermal Runaway simulator device adapted according to specific needs and implemented.
• Thermal Runaway various demonstrators design and testing.
• Preliminary battery dismantling procedure defined.
In the upcoming period, the assembly of the battery pack demonstrator and its testing will be overcome.
• Design criteria, requirements and validation plan definition.
• Battery design freeze.
• Cell-level electric, thermal and mechanical characterisation test definition, execution and modelling.
• Cell arrangement definition and battery system mechanical design.
• Immersion cooling based thermal management system design and testing.
• Active safety system design simulation and testing.
• 800 V HV electric subsystem design and implementation.
• Solid state main switch design, implementation and testing.
• Low power pressure sensor design, implementation and testing.
• BMS hardware demonstrators’ development.
• SOC algorithm development and validation.
• Aging tests protocols for cycling and calendar life, inlcuding fast-charging strategy.
• Thermal Runaway simulator device adapted according to specific needs and implemented.
• Thermal Runaway various demonstrators design and testing.
• Preliminary battery dismantling procedure defined.
In the upcoming period, the assembly of the battery pack demonstrator and its testing will be overcome.
Most of the components designed in the LIBERTY project entail meaningful innovations beyond the state of the art. These are some of the innovations still to be fully demonstrated:
• Immersion cooling based thermal management system allowing an increased fast charging rate and improved cooling capabilities, where the system has benn partially validated with positive results.
• Thermal runaway propagation avoidance by means of synergies between an optimised active safety system and the immersion cooling based thermal management system, that has been validated by a combination of simulation and experimental testing.
• Enhanced safety and weight reduction by means of a fast-acting solid-state main switch, capable of disconnecting the batteries in case of any hazardous event, that has been validated at component level.
• Enhanced safety under idle or parking conditions by means of the integration of a low consumption pressure sensor, that it is already validated at component level.
• Tailored BMS design allowing a potential transfer to specific second life applications.
• Transfer Learning based SOX estimation algorithms development, capable of learning from field data and providing accurate predictions for different cell references/chemistries, that has already been proved to be accurate while reducing the experimental burden.
• Advanced test procedures for safety and performance with the purpose of reducing required qualification times.
• Advanced thermal runaway simulation and testing approach to allow scaling cell- or module-level testing results to battery pack level.
• Semi-automated battery dismantling procedures for recycling.
Other innovations targeted in the LIBERTY project (e.g. remote troubleshooting or battery passport) are currently being addressed in the project but still to be achieved. The evolution and validation of these and other upcoming innovations will be reported on upcoming review period of the project.
• Immersion cooling based thermal management system allowing an increased fast charging rate and improved cooling capabilities, where the system has benn partially validated with positive results.
• Thermal runaway propagation avoidance by means of synergies between an optimised active safety system and the immersion cooling based thermal management system, that has been validated by a combination of simulation and experimental testing.
• Enhanced safety and weight reduction by means of a fast-acting solid-state main switch, capable of disconnecting the batteries in case of any hazardous event, that has been validated at component level.
• Enhanced safety under idle or parking conditions by means of the integration of a low consumption pressure sensor, that it is already validated at component level.
• Tailored BMS design allowing a potential transfer to specific second life applications.
• Transfer Learning based SOX estimation algorithms development, capable of learning from field data and providing accurate predictions for different cell references/chemistries, that has already been proved to be accurate while reducing the experimental burden.
• Advanced test procedures for safety and performance with the purpose of reducing required qualification times.
• Advanced thermal runaway simulation and testing approach to allow scaling cell- or module-level testing results to battery pack level.
• Semi-automated battery dismantling procedures for recycling.
Other innovations targeted in the LIBERTY project (e.g. remote troubleshooting or battery passport) are currently being addressed in the project but still to be achieved. The evolution and validation of these and other upcoming innovations will be reported on upcoming review period of the project.