Solid-state battery

Solid-state batteries provide a high level of safety and reliability. One focus of work in the "Cell and Process Development" working group is the development of components for electrolytes and composite cathodes of lithium or sodium batteries. Some of the materials tested for use in solid-state batteries using electrochemical processes were developed at Fraunhofer IKTS itself, others are commercially available materials. Furthermore, suitable processes for the construction of cells from their individual components, interactions between the components and surface reactions are also tested.

An integrated system consisting of several gloveboxes is available for the production of cells for solid-state batteries. This allows all processes from the production of individual cell components to contacting by PVD or sputtering (lithium, metals, etc.) to cell assembly under argon inert gas to be mapped. The work will focus on ceramic electrolytes as well as hybrid systems of polymers and ceramic particles. In order to prepare for scaling up, a transfer can be made to the plant technology available at the Application Center Battery Technology, including in the dry room.

Beside electrochemical characterization, Fraunhofer IKTS offers a wide range of analytical methods, such as REM, XRD, thermal analytics and microscopy. These methods are also used in post-mortem analyses of solid-state battery cells and electrolytes.

 

Services offered

 

• Performance and aging characterization for solid-state batteries under defined conditions (impedance, cycling, etc. in the temperature range from -20 °C to 100 °C)
• Manufacture and processing of suspensions and solutions in inert gas atmosphere, e. g. work under Schlenk’s conditions
• Vapor deposition of various metals in the glovebox, e. g. lithium vapor deposition of solid electrolyte
• Hot pressing of pellets in the glovebox
• Comprehensive material analytics (XRD, REM, TGA, DSC etc.)