Consortium presents new production method for solid-state battery

14 European partners in the SOLiDIFY consortium have developed a lithium-metal battery with a solid electrolyte. The special feature: It is a ‘liquid-to-solid’ processable electrolyte, according to the researchers.

The battery cell prototype presented by SOLiDIFY has an energy density of 1070 Wh/L and, according to the consortium, is considerably higher than the 800 Wh/L of today’s lithium-ion battery technology. The manufacturing process should also be cost-effective and adaptable to existing production lines for lithium-ion batteries. The prototype was created in the EnergyVille laboratory in Belgium, while the innovative electrolyte was developed by the Belgian Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research and the French company Solvionic.

According to the project participants, the high energy density of the pouch cell was achieved by combining a ‘thick’ cathode with NMC chemistry, a thin lithium-metal anode and a thin solid electrolyte separator. For the electrolyte, “a polymerized ionic liquid-based solid nanocomposite material was used,” according to the researchers. Additionally, “This approach successfully created a thin separator of 20 μm, allowed for the use of a thick cathode of 100 μm, and resulted in a compact battery cell stack.”

In addition, the consortium, which has existed since 2020, says it has succeeded in overcoming previous weaknesses such as mechanical strength and cathode impregnation, reducing the cell’s charging time to three hours and increasing its service life to 100 cycles. The next steps include ‘further upscaling this high-performance battery technology’, according to the project participants. However, they have already stated that the method ‘promises an affordable transfer to industry’ thanks to a manufacturing process that can be carried out at room temperature, can be adapted to current production lines and is expected to cost less than 150 euros per kWh.

The SOLiDIFY consortium consisted of the research institutions Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre/EnergyVille (Belgium), Fraunhofer (Germany), Centro Ricerche Fiat SCPA (Italy), Empa (Switzerland), Hasselt University/EnergyVille (Belgium) and Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) as well as the industrial partners VDL Groep (Netherlands), Umicore (Belgium), Solith (Italy), Solvionic (France), Sidrabe (Latvia), Leclanché (Switzerland), Gemmate Technologies (Italy) and Powall (Netherlands). The project was funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and coordinated by the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre.

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