The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a lithium-ion battery recycling center, the ReCell Center, at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The ReCell Center’s goal is to develop profitable methods to dramatically improve battery recycling rates. DOE is funding the ReCell Center with $15 million over three years. The ReCell Center will have… Read more »
Search Results Found For: "ORNL"
Lithium-ion battery inspired by safety glass could reduce fire risk
Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a way to mitigate the risk of battery failure during automobile accidents by including slits along the electrodes. In “Limiting Internal Short-Circuit Damage by Electrode Partition for Impact-Tolerant Li-Ion Batteries,” published in the journal Joule, the research team explains how this technology could allow manufacturers… Read more »
New protocol reduces Li-ion battery formation time by a factor of six
A new process developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory could alleviate a bottleneck in battery manufacturing and deliver higher capacity batteries. It also conserves lithium, which improves battery capacity. In “Fast formation cycling for lithium ion batteries,” published in the Journal of Power Sources, Seong Jin An and colleagues explain that the formation process,… Read more »
Magnet Applications announces breakthrough in 3D-printed NdFeB magnets
Magnet Applications, a manufacturer of specialty magnets, has announced a breakthrough in 3D-printed neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets. NdFeB magnets are the most powerful known, and are used in applications from robotics to wind turbines to EVs. Magnet Applications engineers, working with researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have shown that permanent magnets produced by… Read more »
PARC uses CoEx printing technology to fabricate high-energy, high-power battery electrodes
PARC, a Xerox company, is collaborating with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Ford in a DOE-funded project that will use PARC’s CoEx printing technology to fabricate higher energy and higher power electrodes for EV batteries. The goal of the project is to demonstrate pilot-scale pouch cells with a 20% improvement in gravimetric energy density… Read more »
Finnish firm develops lightweight stainless steel battery pack for EVs
Finland-based Outokumpu is working on lightweight stainless steel solutions for EVs in cooperation with Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute. Their latest innovation is a new battery pack that combines several lightweight engineering technologies as well as new types of cooling and structural strategies. Because EV batteries are mainly installed in the underfloor area, their casings have high… Read more »
Scrap tires transformed into supercapacitor electrodes
Some of the 300 million tires discarded each year in the US could be recycled and used in electrodes for supercapacitors, using a new technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Drexel University. The process is described in a paper published in ChemSusChem, titled “Waste Tire Derived Carbon-Polymer Composite Paper as Pseudocapacitive Electrode with… Read more »
New study: “Lack of coherent sales concepts” is responsible for weak EV sales
A new market analysis acknowledges that the market share of electric vehicles in the seven leading automotive nations remains stubbornly low, and looks at some of the reasons for the sluggish growth. “The major growth impetus that would anchor e-mobility in the seven leading automotive nations long term is still nowhere to be seen,” the… Read more »
New process recycles rare earth element from scrap magnets
Rare earth elements, prized for their magnetic properties, are used in a wide range of modern technology, including advanced electric motors. Unfortunately, they are expensive, and some are available only from problematic parts of the world. To make it easier to recover and recycle rare earth minerals, the DOE’s Critical Materials Institute (CMI) has developed… Read more »
Real-time images of lithium dendrite structures could lead to better batteries
Scientists at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have captured the first real-time nanoscale images of lithium dendrite structures in lithium-ion batteries. The ORNL team is confident that its research, published in Nano Letters, will be of great benefit to scientists who are experimenting with different ways to tackle the dendrite problem. Dendrites form when… Read more »