42 Maccor promoted its Fusion battery cell testing system, a customisable turnkey solution that comes with environmental chambers and fixturing from AES integrated with Maccor’s cyclers. The result is a unified, plug-andplay system for laboratories focused on accuracy, safety and scalability. Unlike piecing together a standalone thermal chamber with a rack of testers, Fusion provides a single, cohesive unit, according to Mike Sandoval from Maccor. “The biggest advantage is that you’re getting one piece of equipment that’s integrated versus multiple pieces of equipment that you then have to integrate yourself, and there could be a lot of pitfalls and a lot of resources used up in that.” This approach is intended to save significant engineering time and effort by delivering a pre-validated solution directly to the customer. Safety and channel independence are paramount in battery testing, and the Fusion system addresses these through a multi-layered strategy. The Maccor tester itself incorporates safety features that monitor voltage and temperature, allowing it to shut down an individual channel or the entire system. This is complemented by the AES safety chamber, which is engineered to mitigate cell failure events and prevent propagation. Haylie Batres from AES details the two companies’ proactive philosophy, stating: “We go for mitigating the battery events as opposed to just reacting when they happen, protecting the person outside of the chamber.” Key to this is a special fire-resistant laminate board made from FR4 glassfibre–epoxy composite that localises any incident, often requiring only the replacement of one or two cell holders rather than causing widespread damage. An integrated exhaust system further ensures any fumes are vented safely outside the facility. Sandoval emphasises that the test channels exhibit extremely low drift over temperature and time, adding that this results from the use of high-end components and thermal compensation techniques. This ensures robust data integrity, especially critical during sensitive tests like open-circuit voltage measurements at very low currents. Maccor recommends that its testers are calibrated annually, and some customers do that more frequently. However, Sandoval reports that the need for adjustment is rare. “We’ve actually seen systems with four or five years in the field that are still on the original calibration and they’re all within spec.” Scalability and serviceability are also central to the Fusion platform’s design. On the Maccor side, test channels are modular, allowing customers to start with a partial system and add more channels as their testing needs grow. The AES chamber offers significant configurability, supporting different cell formats and amperages. “You can either have 16 channels of 200 A cells or you could have eight channels of 400 A cells, says Batres. “You can change the holders themselves to support prismatic, cylindrical or pouch cells in horizontal or vertical orientation.” This adaptability ensures the system can evolve with a lab’s research and development goals without requiring a complete overhaul. Furthermore, the close partnership between Maccor and AES streamlines support, eliminating the finger-pointing that can occur when dealing with multiple vendors. “If there’s something going wrong, we jump on the call right away and get to the bottom of it.” Highland Plastics showed its Kelvinite family of flame retardant (FR) materials for use in batteries to help contain thermal runaway events. The company has a focused materials science strategy, developing a core halogen-free FR polypropylene and a suite of advanced composite prototypes that define a path beyond conventional solutions. The foundational material of the Kelvinite family was K2200, a halogenated FR polypropylene originally engineered as a US-made alternative for thin-gauge, high-voltage electrical insulation. While K2200 was effective, when halogenated materials burn, they release corrosive and toxic gases, including dioxins, which pose significant health risks and cause long-term environmental damage. Historically, the main challenge with halogen-free flame retardants has been a tradeoff in performance or cost. They can sometimes be less efficient than their halogenated counterparts, requiring higher loadings of alternative additives to achieve the same level of fire resistance. “The market required a halogen-free solution that did not compromise on the stringent FR performance needed for modern electronics and battery systems,” says Ben Simmons at Highland Plastics. This need catalysed the development of K2100, a halogenfree FR polypropylene launched in 2024. K2100 offers robust performance at thin gauges, from 0.125 to 1.5 mm. The material’s efficacy is rooted in an intumescent mechanism; when exposed to direct flame, it selfextinguishes by forming a thick, insulating char layer. This carbonaceous barrier resists flame penetration, effectively shielding more vulnerable January/February 2026 | E-Mobility Engineering The Fusion series of battery cell test systems combines Maccor testers with AES environmental chambers as integrated, turnkey solutions (Image: Maccor/AES)
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