Safety and sustainability: BAM opens new battery test center

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Safety and sustainability: BAM opens new battery test center-battery

Electrical energy stores, which are now mainly based on lithium-ion technology, are a key technology for e-mobility and the energy transition. The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) therefore opens up a new battery test center at its headquarters in Berlin to advance innovation in the area. The focus is on safety and sustainable battery materials.

Electrical energy stores are already indispensable today from everyday life: they supply electric cars, electric bikes and smartphones with electricity. In the transformation to a climate-neutral society, which seek Germany and the EU, they also have a central importance: large stationary battery stores should in future be able to buffer the excess energy from solar and wind turbines and make available at any time.

At the BAM, research on electrical energy stores form a focus. The aspect of safety is in focus, especially the so-called Thermal Runaway, a chain reaction that can lead to extremely high temperatures and fires. The investigations of the BAM are intended to inflow in regulations and standardization at national and international level.

Now the BAM opens a new battery test center at its headquarters in Berlin to promote innovation in the area and further expand its competencies in the electrical energy storage facilities. It offers the BAM and cooperating facilities from science and industry extended test facilities to the latest status, as a current message can be found in.

“In the new battery test center, we are mainly researching the State of Safety, the security state of batteries and cells. We set individual cells, whole batteries or battery-powered devices specifically mechanical, thermal or electrical loads. From the multi-sensory and data acquired with imaging procedures, we derive conclusions for the security assessment and the State of Safety.”- DR. Anita Schmidt, head of the BAM battery test center

The test devices allow for example to cyclically load batteries with high load countries and thus simulate their accelerated aging. The findings from the experiments are important for Second-Life applications: In the future, more exposed batteries from E cars are increasingly used, for example as a storage for photovoltaic systems in private households or as stationary wholesalers, which can stabilize the power grids. Such two applications can make an important contribution to the life cycle assessment of battery technology.

The aspect of sustainability is also the focus of a new special laboratory for energy materials: “Here we are researching innovative and resource-saving materials for individual battery components. Thus, sodium ion batteries of one day could replace the raw material lithium and ingredients such as copper or cobalt, “explains Dr. Tim Fellinger.
The institutions are supplemented by a battery size test bench on the test site Technical Safety of BAM in Brandenburg. Here, the BAM in a project supported by the Federal Ministry of Research examines major storage facilities in real scale to their safety.

“Overall, BAM thus covers a unique range of batteries in Germany, which ranges from the research of the State of Safety from electric energy storage from the material to the cell level to the large battery, and the fulfillment of sovereign tasks and the participation in laws and regulations. We want to make a contribution to the social and political acceptance of the energy transition so central battery technology and at the same time promoting research on future generations of electrical storage, “says Bam President Prof. Dr. Ulrich Panne.

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