Report on the Annual Review of the

FY 2005Advanced Technology Development Program

August 9 & 10, 2005

Argonne IL

November 2005

U.S. Department of Energy

Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies

High Power Energy Storage Program

1

November 3, 2005

Dear Colleague:

This document is a summary of the evaluation and comments provided by the review panel for the FY 2005 Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Technology Development (ATD) program annual review. The review was held at the Argonne National Laboratory on August 9-10, 2005.

A panel of knowledgeable, independent reviewers assessed the accomplishments of the ATD program and provided valuable feedback. The recommendations of the panel will be helpful to DOE as it prepares plans for the research to be carried out in FY 2006. This research continues in support of the U.S. DOE’s FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) program’s efforts to develop high-performance, rechargeable lithium batteries for use in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs).

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the members of the review panel. We are very appreciative of experts who are willing to listen to the many presentations and provide us with feedback and recommendations on the program. Without your participation, this review would not have been possible.

Thank you for participating in the FY 2005 DOE ATD annual review meeting. We look forward to your participation in the FY 2006 review.

Tien Duong

Technology Development Manager

November 3, 2005

Dear Colleague:

This document summarizes the comments provided by the review panel on the ATD program. The recommendations of the panel were carefully considered in developing the FY 2006 work plan for the ATD program.

Overall, the reviewers’ were happy with both the focus and accomplishments of the program, even though they had a number of recommendations for improvement.

The main focus of the reviewers’ comments is the desire for this program to address real world battery issues, particularly by focusing on fundamental causes of poor performance, including at low temperature. Reviewers were very impressed with some of the abuse tolerance testing and diagnostics work, but recommended that the program diversify to consider additional materials.

Some of the main actions that DOE management plans to take in FY 2006, both in response to reviewer suggestion and for other reasons, are:

  • Two advanced chemistries will be investigated in 2006 in order to extend and continue to relevance of this program to US developers.
  • A new focus on SEI diagnostics and formation processing will be initiated to both characterize these and to understand how they impact battery performance.
  • Low temperature research will be expanded in 2006including in-situ diagnostics to understand the fundamental cause of poor low temperature performance.

Once again, I would like to thank the review panel and all attendees for participating in the FY 2005 DOE ATD program annual review meeting. Please feel free to provide us with further suggestions for improving this annual meeting. We look forward to improving this program over the coming year and to your participation in the FY 2006 review.

Sincerely,

David Howell

ATD Manager

FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies Program

Report on the Annual Review of the

FY 2005

Advanced Technology Development (ATD) Program

August 9 & 10, 2005

Argonne IL

November 2005

U.S. Department of Energy

Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies

High Power Energy Storage Program

:

INTRODUCTION

This report presents comments from the review panel at the FY 2005 Advanced Technology Development (ATD) program annual review, held August 9-10, 2005 at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, IL. The objectives of this meeting were to:

  • Review FY 2005 accomplishments and FY 2006 plans for the ATD program
  • Foster interactions among the National Laboratories, universities, and private companies conducting battery research and testing
  • Provide an opportunity for industry program participants (automotive manufacturers, OEMs, etc.) to learn of laboratory capabilities and accomplishments in battery diagnostics, testing, and evaluation R&D and thereby facilitate technology transfer
  • Provide guidance to DOE program managers regarding future program priorities.

The priorities for this program were first identified in 1999 during a series of DOE/industry workshops, specifically with the PNGV (now called the FCVT) Tech Team. The program is organized such that five national laboratories (ANL, BNL, LBNL, INL, and SNL) and ARLwork in close coordination to achieve the objectives of the program, which are to address the barriers to the commercialization of high-powerlithium-ion batteries. These barriers are:

  1. Insufficient calendarlife.
  2. Poor low temperature operation and performance.
  3. Poor response to abuse scenarios.
  4. High cost.

Over the past year the ATD program has been re-organized into focus areas that directly address these barriers. The main focus areas of work, and the organization of the review meeting, are:

  1. Understand life-Limiting Mechanisms & More Accurately Predict Life
  2. Understand and Enhance Low Temperature Performance
  3. Understand and Enhance Abuse Tolerance
  4. Cell Level Cost Reduction

The review panel members, listed in Table 1, are experts from a variety of organizations including battery manufacturers, auto suppliers, and consultants to the automobile companies. Note that six of the sevenreviewers are employees of battery developers or major automotive supply companies. A special thank you goes to the members of this panel for providing valuable feedback to the ATD Program. Without their participation this review would not have been possible.

A complete list of participants (speakers, reviewers, and general participants) is provided in Appendix A.

Table 1: Technical Advisory Panel Members

Reviewer

/ Affiliation
  1. Mohamed Alamgir
/ Compact Power
  1. Tom Barbarich
/ Lithion/Yardney
  1. Per Onnerud
/ Tiax LLC
  1. Joe Stockel
/ NRO
  1. Jim Symanski
/ JCI
  1. N. Raman
/ Saft
  1. Andrew Webber
/ Energizer

Table 2 lists the presentations in the order they were given at the meeting.

Table 2: Presentations Given at the Meeting

Presenter

/

Presentation Topic

Understand and Enhance Low Temperature Performance
G. Henriksen (ANL) / Project Introduction
A. Jansen (ANL) / Low-Temperature Performance Characterization
K. Gering (INL) / Low-Temperature Performance & Characterization
K. Gering (INL) / Low-Temperature Electrolyte Modeling
D. Dees (ANL) / Low-Temperature Cell Performance Modeling
Understand life-Limiting Mechanisms & More Accurately Predict Life
G. Henriksen (ANL) / Project Introduction
J. Christophersen (INL) / Accelerated Aging at INL
I. Bloom (ANL) / Accelerated Aging at ANL
F. McLarnon (LBNL) / Diagnostics at LBNL
D. Abraham (ANL) / Diagnostics at ANL
D. Dees (ANL) / Electrochemical Cell Modeling
G. Henriksen / Advanced Chemistry 18650 Cells
V. Battaglia (LBNL) / TLVT Methodology Validation
J. Christophersen (INL) / TLVT Reference Performance Test Studies
Understand and Enhance Abuse Tolerance
G. Henriksen (ANL) / Project Introduction
K. Amine (ANL) / Cell Component Thermal Reactivity & Improvements
P. Roth (SNL) / Cell-Level Thermal Abuse Studies
D. Abraham (ANL) / Diagnostics – Thermal Abuse Related
X.Q. Yang (BNL) / Diagnostics – Thermal Abuse Related
P. Roth (SNL) / Overcharge Tolerance Studies
Cell Level Cost Reduction
G.Henriksen (ANL) / Project Introduction
K. Amine (ANL) / Advanced Materials Evaluation & Development
R. Jow (ARL) / Advanced Electrolyte Development
A. Jansen(ANL) / Cell Packaging Evaluation
A. Jansen(ANL) / Cell Packaging Cost Study
Program Status
G. Henriksen (ANL) / FY 2006 Preliminary Plan

ORGANIZATION OF THE REVIEW

This report summarizes the comments on the program as a whole, on each presentation in each focus area (including comments provided by non-reviewers), and summarizes a discussion session held with reviewers immediately following the review meeting. The criteria that were used by the reviewers to provide feedback on the ATD program were:

  1. Focus areas of the program are clear and appropriate
  2. Organization and resources applied to each focus area are appropriate
  3. Specific recommendations for additions or deletions from the program

Reviewers were asked to provide comments and recommendations oneach project as well. The criteria used by the reviewers to provide feedback on the projects were:

  1. Relevance to overall DOE/FCVT goals and ATD program objectives
  2. Approach to solving problems and collecting data
  3. Technical accomplishments collaborations
  4. Approach to and Relevance of Proposed Future Research
  5. Specific Strengths and Weaknesses
  6. Recommendations/Additionsor deletions to the work

Program and focus area review forms are shown in Appendix B. Summaries of the reviewers' comments on the ATD program begin on page 7, and their comments and scores on the individual projects begin on page 9. Additional comments provided by other attendees are summarized beginning on page 43. The transcribed reviewers’ comments are availableupon request.

Note that as relatively few reviewers provided strengths and weaknesses, that information has been incorporated into the recommendations/additionsarea.

Overview of Reviewer’s Comments

Overall, the reviewers’ were happy with both the focus and accomplishments of the program, even though they had a number of recommendations for improvement.

The reviewers felt that, overall, the program has very good focus, suggested that priorities be safety, calendar life, and cost, and recommended more work on additives. Some thought that low temperature performance could be handled at the system level[1]. They also noted that the abuse data was particularly relevantto battery developers.

Regarding the low temperature electrolyte investigation, reviewers suggested working more closely with industrial suppliers both to identify and procure promising electrolytes. Some asked that the methodology used to choose the gen 3 materials be presented.

They wrote that the average presentation was betterthan that at an ECS conference or similar scientific meeting. They were also very satisfied with the organization, and particularly noted the good and improved collaborations between the laboratories.

Some reviewers, continuing a comment from last year’s review, felt that the diagnostics teams must come to a clear conclusion on the primary causes of power fade and low temperature performance.

One reviewer commented very favorably on the proposed addition of formation studies, noting that a formation protocol (aging and cycling) that is quick is important to large volume battery manufacturers as long formation processes are costly. National labs could greatly help in this process and speed development for multiple electrolyte/active materials combinations.

One recommendation was to more tightly tie the cost modeling to the well established consumer battery market. The reviewer who suggested this was concerned that anticipated reductions in material prices would not actually materialize for HEV batteries which, for the foreseeable future, will require smaller materials volumes than the consumer battery market.

Another wasto diversifymaterials selection and cell development and give more attention to non-conventional suppliers, who might be more “HEV” hungry, in addition to theAsian suppliers.

A related point was to increase the number of cells being built for testing purposes, and to consider multiple materials and their combinations, rather than one large cell build.

Finally, one reviewer felt that the TLVT validation task may need more cells and test channels to obtain sufficiently accurate data. He recommendedpurchasing additional testers, especially in the areas where a lack of a full statistical design of experiments is a limiting factor.

The reviewers’ recommendations along with DOE’s planned responses are presented in Table 3. In some cases, the action that DOE will implement in response to a recommendation is provided; in other cases, management felt that only an explanation was required to clarify an issue raised by a reviewer and that no action was necessary.

Table 3: Reviewer Recommendations and FY 2006 Actions

Comments/Recommendations / FY 2006 Action/Response
Overall
  1. Consider employing multiple material suppliers and cell manufacturers.
  1. Consider multiple materials and their combinations, rather than one large cell build.
  1. Increase the number of cells being built for testing purposes.
  1. Study commercial high-power 18650 cells more.
/
  1. The suppliers and cell manufacturer being used by ATD have been qualified through a thorough evaluation of their materials’ and cells’ quality and consistency. In addition, the ATD program does screen a large number of materials from multiple suppliers.
  1. The ATD program evaluates multiple materials, including additives, through in-house cell builds at ANL. In addition, the program plans to contract with a commercial electrode manufacturer to evaluate several advanced materials, as well as numerous variations in electrode composition.
  1. The number of gen 3 cells to be built is based on testing and diagnostics needs and resource constraints.
  1. The ATD program has refrained from studying commercial cells because researchers do not know what chemistry, including additives, are in the cells which makes analysis of the test results extremely difficult. The US DOE regularly benchmarks commercial cells.

Life Prediction and Enhancement
  1. Make the interface (SEI) a central theme of testing and diagnostics.
  1. Use diagnostics to develop a fundamental understanding of power fade
  1. The TLVT validation task may need more cells and test channels to obtain sufficiently accurate data.
  1. Recommend more feedback between the modelers and the diagnostics and testing teams.
/
  1. The ATD program will start an effort in 2006 on the positive and negative interfaces and their impact on life.
  1. The ATD program will start a new diagnostics effort in 2006 on the SEI and its impact on power fade and life.
  1. The TLVT validation task will proceed with available channels. It is assumed that developers will have access to approximately the same number of channels. In addition, the purpose of this task is to validate the methodology, and therefore to determine if the number of test channels is currently sufficient.
  1. The diagnostics and modeling teams regularly meet and exchange information. More effort will be made to present the results of this collaboration in the future.

Low Temperature Performance
  1. Focus the diagnostic work on the causes of poor low temperature performance.
  1. Begin improvement of low T charge acceptance.
  1. Work more closely with industrial suppliers to identify, procure, and screen promising electrolytes.
  1. Do not use button cells for low T, high power, work.
/
  1. In 2006, the ATD program will begin a new focus on in-situ diagnostics studies at low temperature and on the SEI in an attempt to isolate the root causes of low temperature performance degradation.
  1. The low temperature work in 2006 will include an investigation of low T charge acceptance.
  1. ATD will continue to work with numerous industrial suppliers and is beginning a new effort in 2006 to identify better low T electrolytes.
  1. Button cell data is being used as an initial screening toolwhen large numbers of material parameters need to be investigated.The ATD researchers are aware of reliability issues and have implemented strict quality control to mitigate them. They perform tests on five identical cells whose capacitiesmust agree with within a few percent. Outliers are replaced at the start of the test. Promising results are further investigated with pouch or large fixture cells.

Abuse Tolerance
  1. Additive work should not be transferred to SNL until performance has been evaluated.
  1. Develop safety standards to determine how safe the cell has to be.
  1. Continue investigating coated/doped cathodes for better safety and stability.
/
  1. The ATD program performs preliminary performance screening on all materials prior to abuse testing. If materials perform well in abuse testing, they are considered for further and larger scale performance testing to verify performance is not degraded.
  1. DOE works closely with auto manufacturers who develop requirements and will forward this request to the USABC. The ATD program is focused on the impact of electrochemistry on abuse response, as opposed to cell and battery design impacts.
  1. Work on coated and doped cathodes will continue.

Cell Level Cost Reduction
  1. Provide additional rationale for gen 3 materials selections
  1. Use consumer battery cost numbers more in cost projections.
  1. Develop material specifications for anode, cathode, electrolyte, etc.
/
  1. Detailed rationale has been presented at previous ATD review meetings. The program’s results confirm that cathode stability is the most important factor in both cell life and abuse tolerance. Therefore, the gen 3 cell build focuses on studying the impact of a more stable (and lower cost) cathode material on life and abuse tolerance. Other gen 3 materials were selected on the basis of not interfering with the study of this alternative cathode material.
  1. The program will double check its cost projections against similar projections in the consumer battery market.
  1. Detailed specifications are material and chemistry dependent. General specifications for electrode materials have been developed, such as particle size,particle size distribution, and morphology. These have been presented at previous reviews.

REVIEWER COMMENTS

Overall Program Evaluation

Appropriate Focus

The reviewers felt that, overall, the program has very good and appropriate focus. They pointed out that the national laboratories have dedicated and knowledgeable peopleassigned to the program and felt that the average presentation was better than that at an ECS conference or similar scientific meeting.

One reviewer questioned one presenter’sstatement that the 1/3 cathode material is becoming a “standard.” He recommended that a group more closely follow the Li-ion industry (including consumer batteries, not just high power HEV). He pointed out that the portable power market will dominatethe industry for the foreseeable future, with the HEV market just being a fraction of the market size. Thus, certain cost projections may not be realistic, especially for materials that are already used in the portable power segment. This situationcould result in aprice (and technology) picture which is somewhat different than that assumed by the program[2].