Battery

Show Report

Battery Show Europe 2021

Peter Donaldson reports with highlights of this show, at which ways of containing thermal runaway were at the fore If there was one theme that shone out from conversations at the Battery Show

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Separator and current collector protect cells from shorts

Soteria Battery Innovation Group, together with a consortium of more than 110 organisations, is making available new separator and current collector technologies that protect battery cells from the effects of internal short-circuits (writes Peter Donaldson). The consortium members include NASA, Mercedes-Benz, Lenovo, DuPont, Bosch and Motorola. As European consortium director Dr Juergen Kellner explains, “We […]

In Conversation

Allan Paterson

Britishvolt’s head of r&d tells Rory Jackson how his experience in battery cell technology has led to him being involved in setting up the UK’s first gigafactory In high-tech industries such as the EV

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Making the cases for battery transport

As the EV industry grows, the logistics of moving major components – particularly batteries – between facilities has to be closely considered, argues Olivier Saada, business development manager for containers at battery transport packaging specialist Corplex (writes Peter Donaldson). EV batteries are considered dangerous goods and fragile items, and the company makes cases that are […]

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Webasto swappable batteries power Staad electrified excavators

With many European cities now insisting that machinery such as excavators used on construction sites must not produce harmful emissions, the pressure on the industry to electrify them is growing (writes Peter Donaldson). In 2020, Staad, the Dutch importer of Doosan machinery, formed its Electric Construction Equipment (ECE) division to convert excavators and now offers […]

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Meeting the challenges of developing e-VTOL air taxis

AutoFlight’s Prosperity I, a Chinese-designed e-VTOL air taxi sized to accommodate a pilot and three passengers, is intended to meet the rigorous safety standards that apply to transport-category aircraft including the largest airliners, and the company is aiming for certification and service entry in 2025 (writes Peter Donaldson). Invited by electric aviation pioneer and AutoFlight’s […]

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A case of plastic over aluminium

Containing thermal runaway, protecting EV occupants from fire and saving weight are all drivers for the application of new materials to batteries, and the battery case is a prime target for replacing aluminium alloy with plastics (writes Peter Donaldson). Multi-industry plastics specialist SABIC has recently re-engineered existing EV battery cases in two proof-of-concept exercises that […]

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Lithium-metal cell packs a punch

With a specific energy of 400 Wh/kg and an energy density of between 700 and 810 Wh/litre, Sion Power’s Licerion-EV rechargeable lithium-metal cells are attracting great interest from EV developers, and the company is in discussion with multiple OEMs to further the development of the technology (writes Peter Donaldson). The company’s senior applications engineer […]

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Feinmetall launches high-current contacts for battery testing and production

As currents produced by EV batteries get higher, the demands placed on the contacts in the systems used to check cell, module and general battery performance in testing and production are also increasing. High-performance contact probes are therefore growing in importance (writes Peter Donaldson). To that end, contacts manufacturer Feinmetall has launched a family of […]

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New chapter in the story of cork

Finding a material with several applications in state-of-the-art EV powertrains that literally grows on trees might seem unlikely, but that is exactly what Portuguese company Amorim Cork Composites is offering with cork (writes Peter Donaldson). The raw material is the bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber), which in addition to its best-known application […]