Project update: Carbon for a low-carbon future – research into advanced battery additives

Project

Investigation into the Combined Influence of Carbon Black and Organic Expander to Improve Micro-Hybrid Service of Enhanced Flooded Batteries

Application

Micro-hybrid vehicles

Timeline

18 months

Goals

The project aims to improve the following parameters through the optimization of additive ratios:

1 - Increase the dynamic charge acceptance to higher than 0.40A/Ah using DCA run-in testing.

2 - High-temperature durability -providing up to 19 units on J2801 testing and other test sequences.

3 - Energy throughput of lead batteries, by demonstrating a much higher cycle life in DOD 17.5% testing when compared to a typical lead battery control. 

Contractors

East Penn Manufacturing, Borregaard USA, Hammond and Cabot.

Initial findings

Optimization of additive ratios have been shown to improve DCA by 40% compared to control.

Expander and conductive additives are a well-established pathway for improving performance of lead battery negative electrodes, however how they interact and work with each other is ill-defined. 

The project aims to optimize and establish functional relationships between these additives to enhance lead battery performance for DCA, high-temperature durability and energy throughput.

The high amount of detail on structure and methods will make the additive mixes and resulting test batteries replicable in any member research facility.

Initial analysis of the amount of each additive mix component has shown correlations to formation behavior. 

A representative sample of 12 V lead batteries to test and study these relationships at product level has been produced.

View the project press release

Released 16 December 2020

View the project update video