Lithium Battery Chemistry - Part 2

This presentation outlines Volvo Cars' strategic transition to SPA3 platform, focusing on the technical synergy required to meet battery life design target. By moving beyond simple cell chemistry to a holistic Cell-to-Body (CTB) integration, Volvo balances critical attributes like pack energy density, safety, fast charge performance and battery durability. Central to this approach is the Cell Aging Framework, which utilises a closed-loop system of laboratory testing and real-world field analysis. These insights feed into predictive models and intelligent BMS control strategies, proactively mitigating degradation. The roadmap emphasises that superior durability is an integrated output of hardware design, thermal management, and ongoing research into complex aging physics.

Self-discharge in lithium-ion batteries leads to capacity loss, reduced efficiency, and reliability concerns. This work reviews its underlying mechanisms, impact on performance, and key diagnostic approaches.

Interphase stability is a critical requirement for achieving long-term performance and safety in advanced battery systems, particularly in all-solid-state batteries where electrode–electrolyte interfaces often limit cell stability and cycling life. We demonstrate that a mixed ionic–electronic conducting interfacial layer formed on the surface of the high-nickel cathode material NMC811 effectively modulates interfacial charge-transfer kinetics and mitigates interfacial degradation. This engineered layer helps to preserve the structural integrity of the cathode and enables stable electrochemical cycling even under pressure-free conditions, addressing one of the key challenges in the development of practical solid-state batteries. A complementary approach is explored for metallic lithium anodes, where interfacial instability often leads to dendrite formation and rapid performance decay. A multi-component protective coating composed of modified cellulose, a single-ion conducting polymer, and lithium nitrate is introduced to stabilize the lithium surface. The coating promotes uniform lithium-ion transport, suppresses the formation of high-surface-area lithium and dendrites, and significantly improves Coulombic efficiency and cycling stability.

Sepion brings a differentiated approach to replacing graphite anodes with lithium metal by combining the latest in nanoscience, polymer chemistry, and cell engineering to safely unlock a 40% increase in electric vehicle range with a gigafactory-compatible solution.

This presentation provides an overview of performance trends in commercial automotive battery technologies. By examining cells across different formats and chemistries, the session highlights how designs have evolved, which factors influence current performance levels, and where future developments may head. The talk offers a perspective on the technological directions shaping next-generation electric vehicle batteries.

Despite progress in lithium-ion batteries, all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) offer higher energy density. Sulfide-based electrolytes show promise but face moisture sensitivity and interfacial instability. Hydro-Québec develops ceramic composite ASSBs, optimising cathode interactions and lithium metal interfaces. Innovations like ultra-thin lithium anodes enable over 700 cycles. Electrochemical analysis guides improvements, bringing sulfide-based ASSBs closer to commercialisation and transforming future battery technology with safety.

Solid-state batteries (SSBs) are positioned as a technologically-superior alternative to state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, attributed to their advantages in abuse tolerance, operable temperature ranges, and simplified system integration. Despite this promise, SSBs still face barriers that hinder their practical application, such as poor interfacial electrochemical compatibility at the particle-to-particle and layer-to-layer interfaces. In this talk, leveraging the unique properties of different solid electrolyte types (oxide and sulfide), we will outline our strategies to effectively enhance the interfacial compatibility and prolong the cell cycling, tailored for diverse vehicle applications.

Next generation battery technologies critically depend on giga factory scale for production of battery components, such as thin lithium or prelithiated silicon-containing electrodes. The ability to print lithium metal on a variety of substrates opens the pathway to manufacturing electrodes at the various ranges of anode’s width and thickness and allows cell manufacturers to easier change cell design and format to meet application requirements. The focus of this presentation will be on the morphology of the lithium metal LIOVIX-based electrode that offers improved cell performance, such as longer cycling life.

Transport produces around a quarter of EU greenhouse gas emissions, with most coming from road transport. Widespread adoption of electric vehicles is therefore essential. SUBLIME aims to accelerate EV uptake by tackling key consumer challenges—reducing costs and enabling longer driving ranges with fast charging.

Solid-state batteries promise to revolutionise energy storage with longer range, faster charging, and improved safety. Many players have shown promising proofs of concept, but the major challenge is scaling the technology to meet the massive global battery demand. This talk will cover solid-state lithium-metal battery benefits for electric vehicles and other applications, advanced separator production processes, unique commercialisation strategies including non-exclusive licensing models and current progress toward market deployment.

All-solid-state batteries based on LLZO electrolytes offer high safety and energy density but face challenges in forming stable composite cathodes with high-energy CAMs. We demonstrate additive-free, fully ceramic NCM/LLZO composite cathodes enabled by optimized LLZO composition and low-temperature FAST/SPS processing, achieving dense microstructures, improved interfacial stability, high active material loading, and promising areal capacities.

Recent progress and future directions in solid-state oxide-based membranes for next-generation batteries will be discussed. Special attention will be given to Li-based garnets and sodium silicate-based electrolytes for alkali metal batteries.

Polymer-ceramic hybrid electrolytes are suitable for operation in batteries with higher capacity anodes such as lithium or silicon and could allow for medium EV, drone, or robotics applications. In this talk we discuss critical details of processing, interface design, and hybrid membrane variation at cell operation, thereby emphasizing that practical factors such as scalability and polymer extrusion processing should be accounted for at early stages of materials development. Performance gains are demonstrated for polymer-grafted ceramic electrolytes in NMC-based cells, also discussing opportunities for boosting the cell performance and component design based on insights from numerical simulations.