Energy Storage

Event organized by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in collaboration with the European Project E-MAGIC coordinated by CIDETEC Energy Storage.

The fourth edition of the International Symposium on Magnesium Batteries (MAGBATT 4), held between September 6 and 8 in the German city of Ulm, was attended by an international line-up of experts in rechargeable magnesium batteries from countries such as the USA, Japan and China.

The event was jointly organized by CIDETEC Energy Storage as coordinator of the European E-MAGIC project, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), VARTA, ZSW, Post Lithium Storage Cluster of Excellence (POLIS), Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU) and Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage (CELEST). Invited speakers included top-level figures such as Brian Ingram (ANL), Linda Nazar (Waterloo Univ.), Óscar Tutusaus (Toyota), Kristina Edström (Uppsala Univ.), Rosa Palacin (ICMAB-CSIC), Hiroto Watanabe (Keio Univ.) or Doron Aurbach (Bar-Ilan Univ.).

Alberto Blázquez, researcher at CIDETEC Energy Storage and coordinator of E-MAGIC, was in charge of presenting the most relevant advances of the project, as well as moderating the presentations of the first session on the last day of the congress, which was entirely dedicated to the E-MAGIC project. Shown for the first time during the presentation of the E-MAGIC project, was the development of a functional prototype of a magnesium battery in cell format, pouch with a capacity of 0.4 Ah and more than 200 charge and discharge cycles.

Among the innovations of this edition, noteworthy was the opening of the congress to other disruptive battery technologies based on multivalent ions, Mg, Ca, Zn, Fe, Al.

CideMOD is available in GitHub, being the first tool of its kind to solve the behaviour of cells in three dimensions

Understanding energy storage systems to address the challenges of the energy transition to electrification is paramount to shortening deadlines. With this objective in mind, CIDETEC Energy Storage has developed cideMOD, an Open Source modelling tool that helps battery designers, manufacturers and developers understand the internal workings of batteries and advance their research.

In this way, CIDETEC shares its know-how in modelling, acquired thanks to 25 years of experience working with batteries and forged in dozens of European projects, with one of the few tools of its kind in the world and the only one in Spain.

cideMOD (available on the GitHub portal ) enables cell-design behaviour to be understood through simulation-based analysis, being the first tool of its kind to consider the full domain and its actual geometry in three dimensions. By combining electrochemical response (including mechanical response), temperature response, and the SEI (Solid Electrolyte Interphase) in the three dimensions of the cell using a single simulation tool, this provides knowledge about the non-homogeneous behaviour of the cells under varied usage patterns. All this makes enables relevant issues to be resolved such as the performance of the battery in relation to its components, to see the effect of the thermal behaviour, to understand the degradation of the battery and to detect the possibilities for improving it.

CIDETEC Energy Storage continues to work on the interoperability of modelling tools within the framework of the European BIG-MAP project, where open infrastructures are being generated to make them available to the scientific community to accelerate development, with the aim of standardising these tools to speed up developments and including new functionalities such as mechanical degradation, within the European DEFACTO project.

On the other hand, the Battery Modelling Unit of CIDETEC Energy Storage has gone further with the development of Proteo, a more advanced modelling tool that, with the same basis of cideMOD, allows many more battery characteristics to be modified such as electrode and electrolyte configuration, and cell geometry via an intuitive and easy-to-use web application.

The new facility, part of MUBIL Hub, will double the space available to CIDETEC Energy Storage to 7000 sqm

With investment totalling 18.3 million, it will be a European epicentre of electromobility

Donostia-San Sebastian, 30th September 2022. CIDETEC continues to make strides in the field of energy storage with the confirmation of new headquarters for CIDETEC Energy Storage, which will move to the Smart and Sustainable Mobility Hub (MUBIL) in Eskuzaitzeta, backed by Gipuzkoa Provincial Council. The facility will involve a combined investment of 18.3 million euros, and, having started construction in July, is expected to be up and running by the end of 2024.

The new location will house CIDETEC Energy Storage and the centre’s Corporate Strategy departments on a 7000-sqm site, which another 2200 sqm will be added to for its laboratories –which are similarly moving to Eskuzaitzeta from their current location in Tolosa– in MUBIL’s main building, also managed by CIDETEC.

All this will result in a complex with almost 10,000 sqm of facilities dedicated to energy storage, doubling current capacity. CIDETEC Energy Storage will therefore have one of the largest centres in Europe for developing technologies around energy storage in general, and batteries in particular. Over half of this area will be used for the systems engineering and materials research laboratories, as well as pilot and scale-up plants for technology development up to TRL levels around 9.

Moreover, all of this is aligned with a strategy around ushering in the energy transition, which is key to the efficient use of renewable energies and their integration in the system, in line with CIDETEC’s Strategic Plan, which envisages doubling in size over the next 5 years. These capabilities will also allow the deployment of a fundamental aspect of CIDETEC Energy Storage’s strategy, namely the launch of new business initiatives in the field of batteries, enabling it to take on ambitious new future challenges.

CIDETEC Nanomedicine and CIDETEC Surface Engineering will continue at Gipuzkoa Science and Technology Park in Miramón.