The Washington Clean Energy Testbeds has opened a public, open-access battery lab in Seattle for developing and demonstrating emerging battery technologies at pilot scale.
The facility allows industry and academic researchers to manufacture batches of prototype pouch cells using processes and formats closer to commercial battery production.
The cells can incorporate conventional lithium-ion materials as well as emerging chemistries intended to improve charging performance, energy density, and material availability.
For electric vehicle (EV) battery development, moving from laboratory-scale cells to larger industry-format cells is an important step in evaluating how new electrode materials and chemistries perform under conditions that more closely reflect commercial manufacturing.
The lab can produce pouch cells with capacities up to 10 Ah, allowing developers to test battery materials beyond small laboratory coin cells before committing to larger-scale manufacturing investments.
The 1,600-square-foot facility includes a dry room maintained at a −40° C dew point, with equipment for electrode slurry mixing, electrode coating, and pouch-cell assembly. An adjoining ambient laboratory includes battery cyclers and a glove box for handling battery materials.
The facility was developed with input from battery researchers and industry teams, including battery researchers from the UW and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as well as research and development teams from Group14 Technologies, PACCAR, Evolectric, and other companies.
Seattle-based Emerald Battery Labs has already used the facility to manufacture sodium-ion pouch cells for transportation and other applications. Other users are developing emerging battery chemistries, including potassium-ion technology.
The $7.5-million expansion was funded by Washington state through the Climate Commitment Act. The Testbeds operates on a pay-per-use basis and provides technical support for process development, equipment operation, and battery prototyping.
“Our new pouch cell lab makes the Testbeds the first public facility on the West Coast, and one of just a few in the US, where innovators and trainees can work side-by-side with staff to demonstrate novel battery materials at the scale that industry requires for investment,” said Daniel T. Schwartz, University of Washington (UW) Boeing-Sutter Professor of Chemical Engineering and founding director of the Clean Energy Institute (CEI) which operates the Testbeds.
Filed Under: Batteries, Technology News