MARS-EV

The project:

To make the electric car appealing for the consumer it is mandatory to offer a vehicle with a sufficient range per single charge, which means carrying batteries with an adequate capacity on board. Another key requisite is that batteries can be charged in a fast way, at least partially, ideally below 20 to 30 minutes.

To fulfill these requirements, batteries with high energy density and high current acceptance are needed. But not only energy density, also battery durability is a key element specially if some degree of fast charge is applied during its lifetime. In this sense, a minimum lifetime of 3000 cycles while keeping at least 80% of the initial capacity in typical automotive conditions over 10-15 years is therefore an essential requisite.

MARS-EV, funded under FP7, aims to overcome some of the main limitations by focusing on the development of high energy electrode materials and safe electrolyte systems with improved cycle-life, sustainable scale-up synthesis, industrial scale prototype cell assembly, modelling ageing behaviour at the electrode and system level, and full life cycle assessment of the developed technology.

Partnership:

The scientific and technological cooperation of the partners in the MARS-EV consortium and their role in the project are well balanced covering the complete chain from raw material processing, scientific comprehension, technological research and battery manufacturing. As an essential part of the project, the industrial partners will commit to exploit all commercial aspects of the new manufacturing processes.

To this purpose, the industrial partnership was designed to combine specialty chemicals suppliers (Johnson Matthey, SGL Carbon, SOLVIONIC) to battery manufacturers, (LITHOPS), battery pack integrator (Johnson Matthey Battery Systems) and recycler (RECUPYL), that will be able to provide direct inputs from end-users thanks to their extensive contact network.

The research institutions and universities in MARS-EV consortium provide complementary skills and expertise in the relevant fields of research and development that are necessary to achieve the project objectives, including KIT-HIU, Fraunhofer ISE, Politecnico di Torino, ENEA, CTP, Tel Aviv University, Imperial College or Oxford Brookes University.

Our role:

CIDETEC acts as coordinator of the MARS-EV project. Apart from this role, CIDETEC is in charge of several key technical tasks and activities, including:

– Development of aqueous based electrode formulations for high voltage cathodes and high capacity anodes.

– Scaling up of selected electrode formulations to support manufacturing of coated electrode rolls and B5 format pre-industrial pouch cells assembly.

– Testing at the cell level and development of electrical ageing models.