CHEMLIB - Optimization of cell chemistry for automotive lithium-ion batteries

Lithium-ion cell technology has established itself in automotive applications due to its superior features as preferred technology for future electrical energy storages. Cells currently present on the market have certain disadvantages and function restrictions which are hampering the widespread usage in the automotive industry. These are the still inadequate energy and power density, and function restrictions caused by the aspects of cycling stability, ageing, safety and temperature range. At present, the theoretical upper performance limits of electrochemical energy storage systems are not reached. The approach of the performance parameters towards the theoretical borders can only gradually be reached by optimization on the cell chemistry level. The algorithms, characteristic diagrams and parameters for cell supervision in a module or a complete battery system can be developed only by exact knowledge of the events in the cell, but the cell producers do not have the necessary knowledge about requirements in the energy storage system from view of the automotive industry. This is based on the fact, that many manufacturers e.g. work for consumer industry, where the requirements are fundamentally more uncritical than in the automotive industry. In this are amongst others the load cycles at discharging as well as charging and the vibration requirements considerably higher than in other non-automotive applications.