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.
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 Monnierfrom 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 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.
Experts gather to discuss the ‘Batteries of the Future’
On Tuesday November 24th, COBRA, in coordination with the rest of the LC-BAT-5 cluster projects (HYDRA, SeNSE and 3beLiEVe ) hosted the ‘Batteries of the Future’ webinar.
The webinar brought together experts from European research, industry, and policy organisations, who shared insights from their ongoing work and their opinions on how battery-related technologies will evolve in the future.
3beLiEVe Coordinator Boschidar Ganev presented the projects key requirements to contribute to a circular economy
Dr. Simon Clark says HYDRA lives up to its name by taking on a multi-headed approach to developing new Li-ion batteries
The discussions covered a large spectrum of battery-related technologies, from cathodes, anodes and electrolytes, to BMS, sensors, and pack design. With the performance of lithium batteries having seen spectacular improvements in the last few years (particularly energy density and lifetime), many of the challenges mentioned were the need to reduce costs as well as improve recycling and the overall circularity of li-based systems.
Some of the highlights of the discussions among the experts include the challenge of increasing the cost of sensing due to the increasing needs of end-use applications – especially electromobility – and therefore the need to extract more value (in the form of data) from them.
In the manufacturing domain, the need for automatisation and control methods in cell manufacturing, together with a focus on reducing manufacturing times to enable mass production cells with integrated sensors was pointed out. The need to reuse and recycle batteries was also mentioned several times, both to improve sustainability, as well as to decouple European production with problematic raw material sources. To round-off the discussion, all of these elements were put into a global perspective to assess the (future) European competitiveness in the Li-ion battery field.
Dr. Ruben Kühnel mentioned that SeNSE welcomes anyone developing silicon/graphite composites to get in touch.
Maarten Buysse of Bax & Company explained how they can support the creation of successful large-scale collaborative R&I initiatives
Finally, over 100 people attended the event from around the world, having the opportunity to actively take part in the discussions by posing questions to the experts and providing their perspectives on the future of batteries.
Register now for our 'Batteries of the Future' webinar
Join us on Tuesday 24th of November for our free webinar “Batteries of the future”. Co-hosted by COBRA and the LC BAT-5 cluster, the webinar will feature insights from experts specialised in Li-ion battery components, who will discuss the novel discoveries and the future of Li-ion technologies.
After introducing the R&I approach of the four cluster projects, the discussion will head towards the latest developments of cathodes, anodes, electrolytes, BMS, battery module and sensors, and cell production.
Our experts will approach each of these topics from different perspectives addressing future developments, the relevant research in the cluster projects, and sustainability concerns, while involving the audience in the discussion.
