ALISE project

ALISE is a pan European collaboration focused on the development and commercial scale-up of new materials and on the understanding of the electrochemical processes involved in the lithium sulfur technology. It aims to create impact by developing innovative battery technology capable of fulfilling the expected and characteristics from European Automotive Industry needs, European Materials Roadmap, Social factors from vehicle consumers and future competitiveness trends and European Companies positioning. The project was initially focused to achieve 500 Wh kg-1 stable Li-S cell.

The project involves dedicated durability, testing and LCA activities that will make sure the safety and adequate cyclability of battery being developed and available at competitive cost. The project approach brings real breakthrough regarding new components, cell integration and architecture associated. New materials have been developed and optimised regarding anode, cathode, electrolyte and separator. Complete panels of specific tools and modelling associated have been developed from the unit cell to the batteries pack.

Activities are focused on the elaboration of new materials and processes at TRL4. The validation of the prototype was aiming to demonstrate to double the current driving range, corresponding to 100 km for PHEV. The potential behaviour of the technology has been be also assessed at the module level for BEV.

ALISE is more than a linear bottom-up approach from materials to cell. ALISE shows strong resources to achieve a stable unit cell, with a supplementary top-down approach from the final application to the optimisation of the unit cell.

ALISE project - Advanced Lithium Sulphur battery for xEV.

Figure 1: ALISE – Advanced Lithium Sulphur battery for xEV.

 

ALISE in a nutshell

1. H2020-NMP-GV-2014, GA Nº666157, EU contribution 6,899,233 €, 15 partners, 06/2015 to 05/2019, activities expected to focus on TRL4.
2. 9 publications and 5 patents have been submitted or currently under preparation, and mostly related to new developments on material and processes, applicable for Li-S either Li-ion or Si/C-ion.

    • Zubair, et al. Dual confinement of sulphur with rGO wrapped microporous carbon from β- cyclodextrin nanosponges as a cathode material for Li-S batteries, Journal of Solid-State Electrochemistry, 21(12), 3411-3420, 2017. doi: 10.1007/s10008-017-3664-6
    • Zubair, et al. Rational design of porous carbon matrices to enable efficient lithiated silicon sulfur full cell, CARBON (2019), DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2019.01.005
    • Amici et al. UV-cured methacrylate-based polymer composite electrolyte for metallic lithium batterie, 2019, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, DOI: 10.1016/j.jelechem.2019.02.027
    • Zubair, et al. Facile synthesis of Carbon Matrices decorated with Magneli Phases TinO2n-1 Nanoparticles as Highly Stable Sulfur Cathode for Lithium Sulfur Batteries, 2018, ChemSusChem, DOI:10.1002/cssc.201800484
    • Baasner et al. Sulfur: an intermediate template for advanced silicon anode architectures, 2018, J. Mater. Chem. A, doi: 10.1039/C8TA03647K
    • Calvo-Serra, A. Fotouhi and D. J. Auger, Design, Modelling and Simulation of a Lithium-Sulphur Battery Pack for an Electric Bus, 2018, 4th Biennial International Conference on Powertrain Modelling and Control (PMC2018)
      Valdivieslo et al. Cathode for lithium sulfur batteries, 2017, European Patent Convention (EP17382465)

3. ALISE has gathered an audience of > 50.000 persons within ALISE partners participating to > 50 events across Europe, America, and Asia, including massive worldwide

 


Figure 2.1.: Workshop on Post Lithium, Nice, October 2018

Figure 2.2.: Press conference, Barcelona, May 2019

 

4. dissemination through specialist or generalist press and electronic media, supported by a database of > 15.000 stakeholders
5. New sensors for Li-S SoC and aging developed by CEIT
6. New BMS including balancing for Lithium sulfur has been built by FICOSA from Cranfield SoC algorithmic
7. Li-S Modules have been electrically assessed following NEDZ and WLTP driving cycle test by Williams Advanced Engineering for both PHEV and BEV hybridisation
8. Li-S Modules passed the UN38.3 mechanical test
9. Li-S behaviour has been simulated by SEAT from real cell data given by OXIS and Cranfield at Car level
10. Dummy Battery pack is built by FICOSA containing all interfaces (electrical, thermal, mechanical) ready to host Li-S cells
11. 3 cells generation and 2 modules generation built respectively by OXIS Energy Ltd and Williams Advanced Engineering (Module level: 2.1 kWh, 173 Wh kg-1, 24.45 Ah, 82V)


Figure 3:
 ALISE battery Li-S cell, Li-S module and dummy pack.

12. New state of the art for High Power together with High Energy generation Lithium sulfur cell: 21 Ah, 325 Wh kg-1 and 340 Wh L-1 with 80% C/5 BoL at 1C
13. Li-S is lighter than Lithium ion, 2.5 lighter from our Li-ion reference in 2014, free of critical materials (i.e. no natural graphite, no cobalt), water-based electrode
manufacturing, using oil industry by product as active material, and still far away from its theoretical limits.
14. Li-S behaves similar respect Li ion with slight increase in electrical range +2% and +10% respectively for BEV and PHEV, -15% decrease in weight, within the same volume
and optimistic scenarios, i.e. evaluated in optimal and limited temperature and current rate
15. ALISE Li S cells’ prototype are still non-optimised for direct battery integration in real condition with:

    • Cell manufacturing need to be fully automatised to reach higher reproducibility/homogeneity, limitation impacting on cell balancing at module level.
    • Effective lithium metal anode protection must be produced at relevant level of manufacturing
    • Cyclability to be improved from 100 to at least to 1.000 cycles for 80% BoL at 80% DoD
    • Operating temperature to be improved from 40ºC to at least to 70ºC
    • Charging rate must be improved from 1C to 3C maintaining the battery pack nominal capacity at 80% of its initial value
    • Volumetric energy as to be improved from 340 to > 500 Wh L-1 as key factor for technology integration and maintaining is low weight (i.e. > 325 Wh kg-1)

16. Final LCA completed by C-Tech shows that Li S has less environmental impact than NMC Li-ion.


Figure 4:
Breakdown of component contribution to cell cost; Left – Li-S; Right NMC 111

     17. Final LCC is complete by C-Tech and shows that Production costs are lower than current NMC 111 Li-ion, and potentially lower
than emerging lower Co NMC grades.

 

ALISE and LISA versus the state of the art

  • 2 kinds of Li-ion available on the markets, High Power OR High Energy (e.g. Toshiba and LG Chem respectively able to charge in 6 and 40 minutes)
  • High energy Lithium Sulfur cell achievements is 440 and 360 Wh kg-1 respectively at C/10 and at C/5, OXIS Energy Ltd by 2019
  • ALISE cell demonstrators have always been lighter respect commercial stat-of-the-art and reached finally 21 Ah 325 Wh kg-1, 340 Wh L-1 at C/5, 80% of the C/5 BoL at 1C, 80% BoL and 80% DoD for 95 cycles.
  • LISA project (GA Nº814471), started in Feb. 2019, is dedicating to Lithium Sulfur technology and specifically lithium metal protection from organic and inorganic materials including roll-to-roll production processes beyond the laboratory scale. LISA lithium sulfur cell objectives are 20 Ah, 450 Wh kg-1, 700 Wh L-1, 700 W kg-1, 1000 cycles at 80% BoL. https://www.lisaproject.eu/

Figure 5: ALISE achievements and LISA objectives versus Li-ion commercial state-of-the-art. Adapted from http://www.batteriesdatabase.com, Shmuel de-leon. Gravimetric (Grey) and volumetric (White) are given versus the nominal capacity or cell size.