Ingolstadt International Lecture Series on Electric Mobility

Ingolstadt International Lecture Series on Electric Mobility
Developing a Cobalt-Free Lithium Ion Storage System

On February 3rd 2022, Dr. Yash Kotak and Christian Geisbauer of Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI) will deliver a COBRA-themed lecture, as part of the Ingolstadt International Lecture Series on Electric Mobility. 

The lecture will present COBRA in detail, covering the project’s overall goal of avoiding Cobalt while achieving an even higher energy density than existing technology, and outlining the developed concepts and prototype system. 

The digital lecture series will be live-streamed to all of THI’s participating partner universities in Australia (RMIT, Melbourne), Brazil (UFPR and LACTEC, Curitiba) and India (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur). The auditorium will consist of students, industry experts and mobility enthusiasts of all ages, and members of the general public are also welcome to join.

The free session will be held in English and via Zoom at 18:00 (CET) on February 3rd. The lecture is scheduled for around 30 minutes and a subsequent discussion with the audience will conclude the evening.

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A recap of our EU Green Week partner event: Developing the sustainable Li-ion batteries of the future

A recap of our EU Green Week partner event:
Developing the sustainable Li-ion batteries of the future

On the 2nd of June 2021, the LC-BAT-5 cluster hosted an EU Green Week partner event on “Developing the Sustainable Li-ion Batteries of the Future”. The session, organised by COBRA partner Bax & Company in collaboration with the HYDRA, SeNSE and 3beLiEVe projects, gathered a diverse group of experts to explore the sustainability of Li-ion batteries. The discussions mainly focused on environmental impact and how it can be minimised in the future to meet the increasing sustainability demands facing the electric vehicle (EV) industry and Europe’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The webinar began with three expert presentations followed by a panel discussion where four other professionals shared their perspectives on future challenges and improvements to reduce the impact of Li-ion batteries, taking into account the EV market as well as research and policy perspectives.

One of the main aims of the event was to highlight the work of the different LC-BAT-5 cluster projects related to Li-ion battery sustainability. Élise Monnier from CEA (representing HYDRA), kicked off the presentations by introducing the LCA methodology and its importance to offer a quantified methodology to support the sustainability discussion. The different steps in the value chain were introduced as well as their impact on the environment and how certain choices in one step of the value chain can have a positive or negative impact on the overall sustainability of Li-ion batteries. 

Boschidar Ganev from AIT (representing 3beLiEVe), focused on the use phase of the battery and specifically discussed how this phase can be extended with different 2nd life applications. He explored the pros, cons and future challenges in widely establishing the 2nd use of batteries, comparing the reuse of the battery pack “as is”, to the reuse of the battery cells and other components.

The last presentation by Ruben Kühnel from Empa (representing SeNSE), shifted the focus towards the End-of-Life phase of the battery and more specifically on the recycling and recovery of materials from battery components, such as the cathode. He touched upon the potential of recycling cobalt and nickel while highlighting the importance of their recovery. Such recovered materials could replace the mining of virgin raw materials which is connected to negative social and environmental impacts, while at the same time, reducing the dependency of Europe on external value chains (as many of the raw material reserves exist only outside Europe).

The event was concluded with a panel discussion, exploring the perspectives of different battery experts from industry, policy and research: 

Jan Tytgat (Director Government affairs EU-Benelux at Umicore)

Philippe Jacques (Managing Director at EMIRI and Secretary-General of the Batteries European Partnership)

Clémence Siret (Eco-Design Manager at SAFT) 

Silvia Bodoardo (Associate Professor at Politecnico di Torino). 

The panellists raised the most urgent problems that need to be addressed, as well as the necessary improvements to positively change the battery industry. This included the need for developing a standardised, comparable, and thoroughly defined LCA methodology, proper End-of-Life treatment of batteries – particularly recycling technologies to substitute virgin raw materials with recycled ones – as well as the need for robust regulations and due diligence on carbon footprint from battery manufacturing.

To learn more about the sustainability of Li-ion batteries, sign up to our mailing list and stay tuned for an in-depth follow-up article from some of the panellists and speakers!

If you have any questions, get in touch with the COBRA team at cobra@baxcompany.com. 

EU Green Week: Developing the sustainable Li-ion batteries of the future

EU Green Week partner event:
Developing the sustainable Li-ion batteries of the future

Join us on Wednesday June 2nd for our free workshop “Developing the sustainable Li-ion batteries of the future”, part of EU Green Week 2021.

WHERE: Online (Zoom)
WHEN: June 2nd 11:00 – 12:30 (CET)

Co-hosted by COBRA and the LC-BAT-5 cluster, the workshop will feature insights from battery experts as they discuss the sustainability of Li-ion batteries, considering their entire life cycle through different steps of the value chain.

In the first half of the session, experts will present their work on various aspects related to Li-ion sustainability, and the impact this might have. These presentations will be complemented by a panel discussion where future improvements will be explored from the perspectives of research, industry and policy.

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For more information on the event, contact cobra@baxcompany.com or visit our Twitter and LinkedIn channels.

COBRA teams up with MILLOR BATTERY to manufacture the first cobalt-free lithium-ion batteries in Europe

COBRA teams up with MILLOR BATTERY to manufacture the first cobalt-free lithium-ion batteries in Europe

This article was originally published on millorbattery.com

The European consortium COBRA for the development of cobalt-free batteries has chosen the Spanish manufacturer MILLOR BATTERY for the production of its first cobalt-free batteries for electric cars.

The COBRA (CObalt-free Batteries for FutuRe Automotive Applications) consortium aims to develop a new lithium-ion battery technology free of cobalt. The project has been underway for a year and now that the first phase of development prototypes is addressed, the consortium has chosen MILLOR BATTERY for the manufacture of prototypes and the first batteries. They have opted for the spanish manufacturer for different criteria among which stand out their experience and knowledge in the design, development and production of batteries, both low and high voltage.

Thanks to the facilities that the company has located in Barcelona, and where the batteries marketed by the brand are already produced under the names flexiFIVEL and flexiEBUST, MILLOR BATTERY offers this consortium a technology, processes, quality and safety levels reference in the industry.

But why are these types of batteries so important and especially that they are cobalt-free?

Increasingly, electric mobility is present in the transport ecosystems of all European countries, and with it the electric batteries that drive all these vehicles.

It is true that, over the life of an electric vehicle, CO2 emissions can be reduced by about 50% compared to a similar combustion vehicle. However, these lithium batteries used today still have room for improvement and more considering the undeniable increase in number that these vehicles are experiencing in recent years.

That is why the European consortium COBRA and MILLOR BATTERY seek to achieve a significant reduction in the proportion of critical raw materials of batteries without compromising both energy and energy performance. Among these raw materials is cobalt, an expensive, scarce and not found in Europe. That is why an initiative like this becomes so important.

In this sense, MILLOR BATTERY considers that this initiative additionally offers an important starting point and generates synergies for products already on the market, both flexiEBUST and flexiFIVEL. These batteries will be able to take advantage of the knowledge derived from this collaboration by making them even more respectful of the environment and reducing the cost.

The first functional prototypes will be ready in early 2022 and the results of the project will be made public by the consortium by the end of 2023.

Among the companies that make up the COBRA consortium is the IREC (Institut de Recerca de l’Energia de Catalunya).

Baltasar López, founder and CEO of MILLOR BATTERY: “We are very proud that the COBRA consortium and IREC have relied on MILLOR BATTERY for such a strategic collaboration. From our origins we are fully committed to the scientific, technological and industrial development of batteries in Europe.”

Questions? Contact cobra@baxcompany.com or visit our Twitter and LinkedIn channels.