[en] Recent economic and political factors have had a strong influence on the lead/acid battery industry in both West and East Europe. Since the publication in 1989 by Batteries International and the Lead Development Association of a map of European battery factories, the number of battery companies has declined. By 1992, a significant shift had taken place in the share of the lead/acid battery market in Europe with the result that a few companies came to influence a major proportion of battery production and sales. The reasons for this relatively fast structural change are examined. Under the pressure from continuing internal and external forces, likely outcomes for battery business in Europe are proposed as the lead/acid industry changes to meet new challenges. (orig.)

[en] The scope of regulations in the battery industry is extensive and also complex. In the future, regulations will become more demanding and will encompass issues not currently considered. Increased focus on environmental issues by government bodies, environmental groups, local communities will result in more strict compliance standards. The USA is currently leading the world's battery industries in the scope and compliance level of regulations. By studying trends in the USA, the rest of the battery industry can prepare itself for the future operating environment. This paper reviews the most critical areas of air pollution, blood-lead levels and recycling. The paper concludes that the battery industry must adopt a culture of exceeding current compliance standards. (orig.)

No abstract available

[en] 1,4-Dimethoxybenzene derivatives are materials of choice for use as catholytes in nonaqueous redox flow batteries, as they exhibit high open-circuit potentials and excellent electrochemical reversibility. However, chemical stability of these materials in their oxidized form needs to be improved. Disubstitution in the arene ring is used to suppress parasitic reactions of their radical cations, but this does not fully prevent ring-addition reactions. By incorporating bicyclic substitutions and ether chains into the dialkoxybenzenes, a novel catholyte molecule, 9,10-bis(2-methoxyethoxy)-1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8-octahydro-1,4:5, 8-dimethanenoanthracene (BODMA), is obtained and exhibits greater solubility and superior chemical stability in the charged state. As a result, a hybrid flow cell containing BODMA is operated for 150 charge–discharge cycles with minimal loss of capacity.

[en] Given their high energy/power densities and long cycle time, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become one type of the most practical power sources for electric/hybrid electric automobile, portable electronics, and power plants. However, the performance attenuation of LIBs has limited their applications in many energy-related systems. In this review, the performance attenuation mechanisms of LIBs and the effort in development of mitigation strategies are comprehensively reviewed in terms of the commonly used cathode materials and anode materials, electrolytes, and current collectors. Several challenges are analyzed and several further research directions are also proposed for overcoming the challenges toward improvement of LIB performance. (© 2021 Wiley‐VCH GmbH)

[en] $\mathrm{\gamma <!--\; ??\; -->}$-Li${}_2$FeSiO${}_4$ is proposed as a promising candidate material for lithium ion batteries. The Fe atoms are tetrahedrally coordinated by Oxygen. Iron has the Fe${}^{2+}$ (S=2) oxidation state and is displaced from the tetrahedron center resulting in a electric field gradient caused by the distorted tetrahedral crystal field. The Mössbauer spectrum of the powder sample shows one dominant site exhibiting magnetic order at 2.1 K and a considerable quadrupole splitting as observed at room temperature. The magnetic hyperfine field of B = 14.7(4) T is oriented orthogonal to the largest principle axis of the electrical field gradient V${}_{zz}$ = -125(3) V/Å${}^2$. The isomer shift of $\mathrm{\delta <!--\; ??\; -->}$ = 1.1(1) mm/s is consistent with the high spin Fe${}^{2+}$ (S=2) state. We will discuss the implications of these findings on the actual magnetic structure in this system. The observed static order is in agreement with susceptibility measurements showing a transition to antiferromagnetic order below 17 K.

[en] Models that can describe the behavior of a lithium-ion battery are indispensable for product development as well as for the reliable control of the battery operation by a battery management system. In this work a model is developed, parametrized and validated that can predict the electric behavior of a lithium-ion cell throughout its entire lifetime.

[en] This paper reviews the rapid progress in the field of high-throughput modeling based on the Materials Genome Initiative, and its application in the discovery and design of lithium battery materials. It offers examples of screening, optimization and design of electrodes, electrolytes, coatings, additives, etc. and the possibility of introducing the machine learning method into material design. The application of the material genome method in the development of lithium battery materials provides the possibility to speed up the upgrading of new candidates in the discovery of lots of functional materials. (topical review)

[en] In this study a grey extended Kalman filter and a novel open-circuit voltage model for the estimation of the state of charge of lithium-ion batteries are presented. To eliminate the influence of truncation error, this study utilizes a grey prediction model to deal with the state prediction problem. In order to further improve the accuracy of state of charge estimation, a novel open-circuit voltage model based on cubic-Hermite interpolation is also proposed to update the state estimate. Moreover, the accuracy of the proposed open-circuit voltage model is verified in terms of the following two aspects: capacity estimation and state of charge estimation. The accuracy and convergence of the grey extended Kalman filter is analyzed for different types of dynamic loading conditions, including the Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule and the New European Driving Cycle. The experimental results show that the proposed approach offers good accuracy for the estimation of the state of charge. The experimental results show good agreement with the estimation results, and the proposed method can effectively improve the accuracy of extended Kalman filter. - Highlights: • A novel open-circuit voltage model is proposed. • A new grey extended Kalman filter is proposed. • The proposed open-circuit voltage model is validated from different perspectives. • The proposed grey extended Kalman filter against varying loading profiles is evaluated by statistical methods.

[en] Highlights: • A Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM) is proposed for end-of-discharge prognostics of batteries. • The BHM provides prognostics of individual and groups of batteries. • The BHM method can address cases with or without measurement data. • A discharge cycle dependency can also be identified in the result giving the opportunity to predict the battery reliability. To optimise operation and maintenance, knowledge of the ability to perform the required functions is vital. The ability is governed by the usage of the system (operational issues) and availability aspects like reliability of different components. This paper proposes a Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM)-based prognostics approach applied to Li-ion batteries, where the goal is to analyse and predict the discharge behaviour of such batteries with variable load profiles and variable amounts of available discharge data. The BHM approach enables inferences for both individual batteries and groups of batteries. Estimates of the hierarchical model parameters and the individual battery parameters are presented, and dependencies on load cycles are inferred. A BHM approach where the operational and reliability aspects end of life (EoD) and end of life (EoL) is studied where its shown that predictions of EoD can be made accurately with a variable amount of battery data. Without access to measurements, e.g. predicting a new battery, the predictions are based only on the prior distributions describing the similarity within the group of batteries and their dependency on the load cycle. A discharge cycle dependency can also be identified in the result giving the opportunity to predict the battery reliability.