NEXTCELL’s overarching goal is to provide a new Li-Ion cell generation for both high capacity and high voltage applications by developing and validating a ground-breaking gellified cell concept, integrating several innovations at the material level for each of the main cell components: the gellification of the electrodes and the separator in combination with a high voltage-stable gel electrolyte will allow the development of the full gel cell concept.
PROJECT
OBJECTIVES
High energy density.
Excellent performance in high capacity and high voltage applications.
Physical and mathematical models.
Key methodology to optimise and accelerate the research and development process of new energy storage technologies.
Sustainable.
Optimisation of manufacturing processes, reducing capital and operating costs of future gigafactories, by avoiding the evaporation of solvents and the electrolyte filling step.
Cheaper.
Reduction of around 50% in energy consumption.
Safer.
Intrinsically safe cells, avoiding the presence of low-boiling point components in the electrodes and the separator.
NEXTCELL will not only provide the European market with state-of-the-art cells but will also address three key aspects that currently hinder further market penetration of Li-Ion battery technology, such as costs, safety, and sustainability.
In this sense, the technology developed by NEXTCELL will optimise, first, the manufacturing processes, reducing the capital and operating costs of future gigafactories, by avoiding the evaporation of solvents and the electrolyte filling step. Secondly, the project will produce intrinsically safe cells, avoiding the presence of low-boiling point components in the electrodes and the separator. Finally, a reduction of around 50% in energy consumption will be guaranteed.
The pioneering NEXTCELL cell concept will revolutionise different scientific disciplines thanks, also, to the development and use of physical-chemical models of both the cell and its gellified components, demonstrating how the interaction between mathematical modeling, experimentation and prototyping provides a key methodology to optimise and accelerate the research and development process of new energy storage technologies.
IMPLEMENTATION
1.
Requirement specification in predefined use cases.
2.
Development of the raw material and definition of the continuous solventless production of gellified electrodes and separator.
3.
Cell design and manufacture at pouch cell level.
4.
Electrochemical characterisation and thermal, ageing and safety test.
5.
Large gellified cell prototyping.
6.
Modelling the gellified cell concept.
7.
Sustainable production and material recovery.