Empa, the Swiss federal laboratories for materials science and technology says its four-year EU project SeNSE, led by eleven teams from research and industry, made “significant improvements” in batteries for electric cars. The researchers say the prototype lithium-ion cells developed are more sustainable, safer, and have a higher energy density, although not as stable as desired.
The “SeNSE” project was launched in 2020 and completed in early 2024. The teams covered “almost the entire value chain of battery production”, from the development of new materials to their scaling and installation in battery cells.
The resulting pouch cells are roughly the size of a smartphone and were manufactured by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). They were installed in a ready-to-use module like the ones used in electric vehicles with the associated electronics and software by FPT Motorenforschung AG, the innovation centre of the FPT Industrial brand, which belongs to Iveco Group.
According to Empa, the SeNSE module has “several improvements over today’s batteries” and achieved a higher energy density, a more favourable environmental balance, fast-charging capability and increased fire safety. This, Empa says, was possible while making the battery cost-effective. The cell’s cathode contains a reduced amount of cobalt, and in the anode, much of the graphite was replaced with silicon.
The cells still face drawbacks. The project teams say the prototype cells are not yet as stable as they would like them to be. “We have scaled up all new developments from laboratory to pilot scale,” says laboratory head Corsin Battaglia. “For production in a so-called gigafactory, of, e.g., project partner Northvolt, producing multiple gigawatt hours of batteries per year, the entire material production process would have to be scaled up once more, say, by a factor of 1000.”
“We are also researching battery technologies that are potentially worlds better than lithium-ion batteries – more sustainable, safer and with a higher energy density,” reveals Battaglia. “But it will still be a few years before they can be produced industrially. In SeNSE, we wanted to develop technologies that can be installed in market-ready electric cars within a few years.”
The academic collaborators involved in SeNSE were the University of Münster, the Helmholtz Institute Münster, Coventry University in the UK, the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). Industrial partners included Northvolt, FPT Motorenforschung AG, the French start-ups Solvionic and Enwires and the chemical company Huntsman, which operates a research site in Basel.
Empa researcher Ruben-Simon Kühnel revealed, “We have founded a joint cluster for battery research, and we regularly exchange ideas and results.” The SeNSE project was one of four battery research projects. The coordinators of these projects have now launched a joint Horizon Europe research project called IntelLiGent, focusing on cobalt-free high-voltage cells for electric cars.
