Batteries International magazine - issue113

Issue 113

Autumn 2019

Separator superstars R&D lead the way ahead in race to hit the jackpot

Frank Fleming winner of International Lead Award

Full breakdown of ABC talks and presentations

One Minute Giveback: the results, some $40,000 later

Meet Rainer Wagner — VRLA design all-rounder

Bringing the industry together

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CONTENTS COVER STORY: SEPARATORS

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Turning R&D separator technology into products fit for the future needs of the industry 44 Batteries International spoke to the leading separator manufacturers about what they thought were the outstanding advances that their firms were making Why separators are critical to lead batteries’ future The race to build better separators has never been so intense. But, to understand why, one must first examine the basics of separators’ role and function in different battery configurations

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EDITORIAL 4 Timely lessons from the Great Manure Crisis of 1894 THE BATTERY NOBEL LAUREATES 6 The creation of the lithium ion battery cell was the work of a handful of scientists around the world. This year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry was won jointly by Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino — three diverse scientific giants.

PEOPLE NEWS 14 Digatron appoints new VPs in sales and product management • Walicki retires as president of Clarios and BCI • Microporous appoints Brad Reed as director of corporate development • Amine, Blaabjerg share 2019 Global Energy Prize • Huibert van Deutekom wins ICBR award •‘Prepare to be amazed!’ BCI opens for innovation award entries NEWS 19 EnerSys buys thin plate pure lead battery maker NorthStar • East Penn takes stake in lithium battery manufacturer Navitas • PowerGen acquires Rafiki Power to boost micro-grid in Africa • Lithium Werks buys systems integrator LiiON to expand global performance • Gridtential completes largest ever manual production run of Silicon Joule batteries • Pivotal buys bipolar plate technology from Integral • ENTEK announces plans to double Asian production next year • Lead battery maker Leoch plans 4GW lithium battery factory in China • China’s largest lead producer announces plans to make batteries • Exide Industries moves into e-rickshaw manufacture • Exide Industries to assemble Li-ion batteries soon but there is ‘no existential threat’ to lead business • ILZDA refutes controversial report findings on ULAB recycling • PowerTech Water receives $1.5 million to market its lead water treatment technology • Arizona regulator warns of ‘unacceptable hazards’ of lithium batteries • New report shows lead battery industry added $26.3bn to US economy in 2018 • LA County arranges door-to-door health checks of Quemetco battery recycling plant SOLAR+STORAGE NEWS 35 EDF signs agreement to supply energy and storage to huge new UK theme park • Gold mining firms install solar plus storage at African mines • World’s largest lithium battery to be installed on Pacific island of Guam • CalCom Energy launches $100m fund to help farmers build solar+storage projects • Sungrow-Samsung SDI sign up to supply solar+storage system in Massachusetts • California approves the state’s largest battery installation • Exide announces solar project to power Spanish recycling factory • Famous African game park Kruger fitted with battery-backed microgrid • Utah utility reveals largest battery demand response system in the US • Syncarpha and ENGIE in unique project financing arrangement • GE Renewable Energy to integrate energy storage into 200MW solar river project PRODUCT NEWS 41 Bitrode releases new high voltage tester • Operando neutron radiography used on lead batteries for first time • East Penn develops battery for higher temperature truck applications • Wirtz unveils its ‘plug and play’ system for smaller recyclers • Hoppecke launches active carbon battery range for forklfts www.batteriesinternational.com

Nobel Laureates: Whittingham, Goodenough and Yoshino 6

Thielmans: new Digatron VP for sales and marketing 14

Future proofing the new London ‘resort’ with PV and storage 35

Wirtz ‘plug and play’ machine for small recycling companies 43

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 1

CONTENTS ABC & 6ISLC EVENT REVIEW

ABC & 6ISLC Event Review

One minute giveback: a huge success

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18ABC ENDS WITH TALK OF BEING ‘THE BEST EVER’

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GALA NIGHT — UNFORGETTABLE

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THE ONE-MINUTE GIVEBACK Sometimes charity doesn’t always begin at home, and that’s why attendees to the 18ABC were asked to hand over a dollar or give up a minute of their time to do something for poverty-stricken children in Bali. Over $40,000 was raised

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THE INTERNATIONAL LEAD AWARD Frank Fleming, one of the cutting edge R&D figures of the battery business, is this year’s winner for his services to the industry

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18ABC: A REVIEW OF THE PRESENTATIONS An ill-wind for the future but optimism prevails

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6ISLC: A REVIEW OF THE PRESENTATIONS Recycling — ignore this subject at your peril

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EVENT REVIEWS The Battery Show, Detroit, US • International Flow Battery Forum, Lyon, France • International Congress on Battery Recycling, Lyon, France

Wagner: VRLA design expert 110

The latest news from 18ABC, Bali, Indonesia • September 3-6, 2019

A Batteries International publication

What’s News

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Traditional Indonesian dancers, the smartest and largest video backdrop seen at a lead convention and a crescendo of music were the setting to the opening of the biggest lead battery conference this year and, quite possibly, the largest ever.

n International Lead Award goes to Frank Fleming for his lifetime contribution to the lead battery industry — a short review of his career and why this award is so richly deserved.

Pages 6-7

By Mike Halls

O

pening the presentations, which came the day after the International Secondary Lead Conference (6ISLC) ended at the same venue, organizer Mark Stevenson laid down the gauntlet to battery veterans to ‘step up to the battery plate’ and mentor the next generation of industry experts.

“We do have new faces in the industry,” he said, “which is wonderful to see. So, I pose the question: where and who is this next generation of battery explorers and innovators going to learn from?

“My challenge is for the veterans of the industry to share your knowledge, your experiences and of course your mistakes, which will only strengthen our industry and the endeavours of the next generation.”

This year’s conference is set to be the biggest yet, boasting around 1,000 delegates, 55 presentations, more than 150 exhibitors and for the first time, a charity programme which lasts for the three days of the event.

(See pages 12-13) Thanking David Rand and

n Conference News Announcements from ENTEK as it reveals plans for huge doubling of production at its Indonesia plant • Bitrode reveals new high voltage tester • Wirtz launches ‘plug-and-play’ recycling plant that fits into a 40 foot container. Pages 4,5

n Scenes From an Exhibition.

Fun, dances and network at the opening reception — how the great and the good of the Asian Battery Conference tested the waters ahead of the opening day of the conference. Page 8-9

Brian Wilson for guiding the ABC technical committee, Stevenson said they had brought together ‘one of the strongest, most diverse and largest programmes we have ever had’, and he welcomed four chairwomen, the greatest number of female chairs that the conference has ever had.

“As we look to diversify, a subject we have discussed so often, I personally would like to thank them for their participation,” he said.

Talking to Battery Street Journal later, Stevenson applauded the fact that each conference is distinct from each other.

“Each conference is an individual event, it’s got its own characteristics and I don’t really want to compare them with each

other. It’s the people hat make them what they are,” he said.

“Great start to ABC,” said ILA managing director Andy Bush.

“It was especially pleasing to see so many of the plenary speakers recognizing the important work of the Consortium for Battery Innovation in catalysing much needed improvements in lead battery performance, including new CBI member Daramic’s use of the technology roadmap targets in framing its own development programme.”

Delegates are promised a ‘spectacular cliff-top venue’ for the gala dinner, which will be held tonight (Thursday) at the Puri Bhagawan restaurant.

The conference will close at 4pm on Friday.

n One Minute Giving — a look behind the scenes of the three charities ABC organizers and delegates are supporting. Some of the donors have been more than generous, Special thanks go to Taiwan’s BB Battery.

Page 12-13

n 6ISLC — The 6th International Secondary Lead Conference closed on Tuesday with a compelling mix of presentations on the industry.

Truly this conference has come a long way since its first event in 2009. Brian Wilson reports on both days of the meetings.

The Last Word … In Bali 114

EVENTS 98 Our comprehensive listing of conferences and exhibitions worldwide BATTERY HEROES: RAINER WAGNER 110 For the past 35 years, Rainer Wagner has worked tirelessly to improve lead battery performance, develop new battery types and he has been one of the key figures in VRLA design LAST WORD … IN BALI 114 Not a newspaper but a snooze-paper • Size matters, it’s official • Brightest shirt on the beach • Coming soon to a car park near you • 21 today Melissa! • The way we were … sigh • Moans from the poolside • Culture fiends at Bali • Blue plaque awarded to conference hotel

Pages 14, 16

n The Last Word — Coming soon to a car park near you •

Salamat oulang tahun Melissa!

• The way we were … sigh • Moans from the poolside • It’s a bug’s life • Size matters, it’s official • John and Jun, open the kimono. Pages 18, 19

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2 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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EDITORIAL Mike Halls • editor@batteriesinternational.com

High tech lessons from the Great Horse Manure Crisis Very few people have ever heard of the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 — proof if you like that the history of technology lurches from side to side but rarely looks behind.

But it was a very real crisis that faced cities across the world and in particular London that year. The problem was a simple issue of logistics. Some 50,000 horses were needed to keep the city moving and fed.

But each horse produced over a litre of urine a day and around 10 kilos of manure. And this half million kilos was distributed across the capital’s roads. Every day. Day after day. Cities across the world stank.

The Times newspaper predicted, and some smart Alec had written it, that ‘every street’ in the then largest city in the world would ‘eventually be buried under nine feet [three metres] of manure’.

The problem seemed intractable because another smart Alec had calculated (wrongly, in fact) that the amount of horses required to remove this poo would create yet more manure. A vicious cycle of ever rising ordure.

Quite how The Times journalist worked out the depth of manure would reach the equivalent of three metres could only have been speculation of the most imaginative kind.

And yet another smart Alec (also wrongly) calculated that the amount of pasture eventually required to keep London in motion — ie feed the horses — was equivalent to one medium sized British county. British agriculture would suffer just to keep the horses in hay. Also, with the meteoric growth of London at the time this would eventually be a source of economic devastation.

The wild inaccuracy of the predictions, the variability of the conclusions and the coarseness of the assumptions seems ridiculous to modern readers.

But the same blurred thinking seems to dominate all debate on the future direction of the energy storage industry. (And, its corollary, discussion of climate change and the environment.)

First, the range of predictions of what chemistry will dominate the business is (for now) overwhelmingly 4 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

lithium. Whether this is right or wrong, you be the judge. In the opinion of this magazine the jury should still be out.

At the farthest end of the spectrum are the lithium enthusiasts. These evangelicals have happily predicted for the last decade the end of the world for the lead battery while — surprisingly — their own product must inevitably become the solution to the world’s energy problems.

Their calculations — and they are smart Alec ones — are based on an enthusiasm that often verges on the ridiculous. According to the earliest predictions of lithium uptake around 2009 some 40% of all automotive batteries would be lithium this year. It’s about 1%, depending on who you talk to and how.

If this boom in lithium had happened the streets of London, New York or any other capital city we would now be three metres deep in discarded lead batteries with sulfuric acid coursing through the gutters.

Moving away from the evangelical to the fundamental, a new generation of experts are trying to get to grips with what the boom in renewable energy, its storage, and how this will affect this battery market will mean for the future.

The trouble with making forecasts is that, in the main, even when a cynical group of analysts come together a consensus of sorts appears.

Schneider Electric recently, for example, ‘proved’ that lithium batteries would be 10% to 40% more costeffective over a 10-year life in a UPS facility. Even if you ignore the blindingly obvious — the cost of disposal of the lithium battery was not included — a simple increase in the size of a lead battery, giving it a greater cycle life, knocks out this argument.

Years ago, in a former life as a financial journalist I interviewed the head of the then-largest mortgage lender in the UK. We were discussing the latest collapse of the housing market.

Everyone — the media, the mortgage lenders, in fact the entire industry — was repeating a new and unbearably trite mantra. Buying a house: it’s for nesting www.batteriesinternational.com

EDITORIAL not investing. Put simply, the boom and bust cycle of UK property was over — too many fingers had been burnt in the last crash. Lessons had been learnt.

“Not at all,” the CEO told me. “Markets move in waves and the housing market is just as irrational as some of the others. Homebuyers are like lemmings.

When opinion shifts they all buy, sell or jump together. There’s no rime or reason to it.

“The only thing you can do is watch the signs of the herd instinct appearing.”

Mention of the herd instinct reminds us of the irrational enthusiasm lithium enthusiasts had just five years ago when investors — both government and private — poured half a billion dollars into A123 Systems. And the company, valued on paper in the hundreds of millions of dollars, had not even made a profit.

Similarly, too we’re now seeing all the major auto manufacturers jumping at the same time. In Europe it’s legislation, or rather the fear of legislation, that’s pushing the industry that way.

And this will create anomalies in totally unpredictable ways. Could, for example, the second hand value of gas guzzling high performance SUVs become more expensive than brand new hybrids powered ones that conform with CO2 rules? Or brand new hybrids with better performance but limited range costing less than the SUVs? Perhaps a better example of a blind faith in technology and its potential cost-effectiveness can be found in the practical history of Boeing’s 747.

The idea for the plane emerged in the early 1960s as a military vehicle but it was swiftly adapted to become the largest passenger airliner of its kind.

By 1970 the first sales of the aircraft began but Boeing had a dilemma on its hands. The aviation thinking of the time reckoned that only a few hundred 747s would be needed. (At most.)

Boeing reasoned that the next generation of planes would be supersonic — it had made that a policy statement from the mid-1960s — so why make huge investments in the manufacture of a plane that would be antiquated within a decade.

times I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

But there is a thought here. Lead evangelists have to prove their case too.

This magazine has nothing but respect for the work of the Consortium for Battery Innovation. We admire their worthy goals of increasing battery cycle life by five times to 5,000 cycles by 2022. Their goal of increasing dynamic charge acceptance by five times to 2A/Ah by 2022 is equally admirable.

But is it truly achievable? Or over-egging their case?

Again time will have to be the judge of this.

The Great Manure Crisis of 1894 happened at a time when the number of cars on Britain’s roads could be counted on two hands. Literally two hands and not a third.

In the event it didn’t prove to be a crisis. Much needed involvement by the newly created London County Council was to solve the manure crisis — effectively greater involvement by the authorities in scooping up the problem.

And when the motor car took off in large numbers, the crisis was over.

Before later iterations of the plane were to be made, the design had to incorporate features such that it could be a lumbering, huge cargo plane. The hump at the top is the legacy of that thinking. That is once the bright, shiny, new supersonic aviation age had emerged.

Two take-aways about the problem and its resolution.

Half a century on, the jumbo jet is still the workhorse of the passenger skies — technology couldn’t deliver what was needed. We’re reminded a little of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland who said “Why, some-

And a corollary. Most depressingly, the average speed of driving in London nowadays is slower than in the 1890s. Then, it was around 8 miles an hour. Last year getting around the capital had fallen to 7.8mph.

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First, the problem was overstated, the solution needed was to apply existing technology.

Second, final resolution came from the arrival of a technology that was totally unexpected. The car.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 5

PEOPLE NEWS — NOBEL PRIZES FOR THE LITHIUM THREE

The creation of the lithium ion battery cell was the work of a handful of scientists around the world. This year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry was won jointly by Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino — three diverse scientific giants. Michael Halls reviews their story and achievements

Whittingham, Goodenough and Yoshino: the three titans of the lithium ion battery This December three of the smartest electrochemists of the battery industry will take their place on the platform at the Stockholm Concert Hall tol be awarded the world’s most prestigious honour — the Nobel Prize. The three winners for providing, in chemistry, “the greatest benefit for mankind” — the official wording for the choice of winner — are Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino.

To understand how they reached the podium — and how they all relate to each other and to their laureates — one must go back almost half a century.

It all started in 1972. Diversification was the new name of the corporate game and it seemed a no-brainer for Exxon’s research and engineering department to look at alternative energy production and storage. The timing

6 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

was impeccable — the following October the first oil crisis paralysed the world economy. So with the deepest pockets of perhaps the most profitable oil giant in the world, it began seeking the best scientists in the world.

Among this elite was a 31-year-old graduate, then an up-and-coming researcher at Stanford University, by the name of Stanley Whittingham.

Following his investigations of the properties of tantalum disulfide, Whittingham and his colleagues made a remarkable discovery: understanding the role of intercalation electrodes in battery reactions.

Whittingham would later explain: “Intercalation in batteries is like putting jam in a sandwich. In chemical terms, it means you have a crystal structure, and we can put lithium ions in, take them out, and the structure’s

exactly the same afterwards. Because we retain the crystal structure, that’s what makes these batteries so good, allows them to cycle for so long.”

Understanding intercalation would eventually result in the first commercial lithium rechargeable batteries, which were based on a titanium disulfide cathode and a lithium-aluminium anode.

The implications for the oil industry — and the rest of the world — should have been tremendous. In 1976, Forbes magazine declared that “the electric car’s rebirth is as sure as the need to end our dependence on imported oil”.

But it was not to be. The EV’s rebirth would have to wait However, such enthusiasm had died out by the end of the decade. Profiting from Whittingham’s pioneering

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PEOPLE NEWS — NOBEL PRIZES FOR THE LITHIUM THREE breakthrough, Japan later turned lithium ion batteries into a highly profitable industry.

Stanley Whittingham’s career really took off after leaving Oxford with his DPhil in 1967. After a short spell doing research for the Gas Council, he realised that to get an academic or industrial job, he had to go the US. Where better than the warmth of California? In February 1968 he became a post-doctoral fellow, investigating solid-state electrochemistry under professor Robert Huggins at Stanford University.

It was quite a switch. “In the UK, France and Germany, solid-state chemistry was a respectable subject,” he recalls. “Chemistry departments did solid-state chemistry. In the US you could count the number of solidstate chemists on the fingers of one hand. So I went to a materials science department, not a chemistry department.”

But the turning point of his career was fast approaching. In 1971, his published findings on fast-ion transport won Whittingham the Young Author Award of the Electrochemical Society.

This was a springboard to greater things. “Soon after the award, I was approached by Ted Geballe, professor of applied physics, who had been asked to find people to go to Exxon, which was starting a corporate research lab in Linden, New Jersey,” he says.

Their mission? To prepare to survive when oil ran out — a major theme of corporate thinking in the 1970s.

Although he was tempted by a job in the material science department at Cornell University, Exxon made Whittingham an offer he could not refuse.

They included him in a six-strong interdisciplinary group, led by physical chemist Fred Gamble, who had also been at Stanford, alongside an organic chemist and several physicists.

“If you needed something for your research you asked for it, and it would be there in a week. Money was no issue,” Whittingham says. “They invested in a research laboratory like they invested in drilling oil. You expect one out of five wells/ideas to pay off.

The Exxon research team began to look at tantalum disulfides. They found that by intercalating different atoms or molecules between the sheets of tantalum disulphide, they could change the superconductivity transition temperature. The potassium compound showed the highest superconductivity.

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Whittingham realized this compound was very stable, unlike potassium metal, so the reaction must involve a lot of energy. This suggested a possible use for this intercalation reaction was electrical energy storage.

“We looked at lithium and sodium, not potassium, because it turned out that potassium is very dangerous. We also looked at the titanium disulfides, because they are lighter than tantalum, and moreover were good electronic conductors,” he says.

Meanwhile, a Japanese company had come out with a carbon fluoride battery that was used by night fishermen.

“That was a primary battery,” he says. “This was the beginning of interest in lithium batteries.”

The patents arrive

Towards the end of 1972 Whittingham and his colleagues informed their Exxon bosses that they had a new battery, and patents were filed within a year. Within a couple of years Exxon

Enterprises wheeled out prototype 45Ah lithium cells and started work on hybrid vehicles.

The Exxon battery promised to make a huge impact. At the time, Bell Labs had built up a similar research group, again of chemists and physicists from Stanford. “We were competing head-on for a while, also in publications. If you read our publications on the battery, you’ll see a lot of basic science with no mention of batteries. Exxon came up with the key patents early on,” he says.

“These early batteries were quite remarkable, and some of the smaller ones, used for marketing, are still operating today, more than 35 years later.

“We had an incredibly good patent attorney. They would write up your invention and then ask you: why can’t you do it this or that way? And they provoked us into building a battery fully charged or fully discharged.”

The latter is the way almost all of today’s batteries are constructed.

STANLEY WHITTINGHAM

“Intercalation batteries are like putting jam in a sandwich. In chemical terms, it means you have a crystal structure, and we can put lithium ions in, take them out, and the structure’s exactly the same afterwards … Because we retain the crystal structure, that’s what makes these batteries so good, allows them to cycle for so long.”

Following his investigations of the properties of tantalum disulfide, Whittingham and his colleagues made a remarkable discovery — understanding the role of intercalation electrodes in battery reactions “If you needed something for your

research you asked for it, and it would be there in a week.

“Money was no issue. They invested in a research laboratory like they invested in drilling oil. You expect one out of five wells/ideas to pay off,” says Whittingham.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 7

PEOPLE NEWS — NOBEL PRIZES FOR THE LITHIUM THREE But there wasn’t a smooth transition to a commercially acceptable product.

In 1976, a rechargeable room-temperature Li-TiS2 battery cell was demonstrated; it had an acceptable rate of charge and discharge and offered an energy density higher than can be achieved with conventional batteries that have an aqueous electrolyte transporting H+ ions. However, the Li anode was not replated smoothly on recharge but developed dendrites that grew across the flammable organic electrolyte on repeated recharge to give an internal short-circuit with disastrous consequences.

The next development was to push forward the theory to the next level.

It was to happen on the other side of the Atlantic, this time by an American physicist working from Oxford University, in the UK.

Enter John Goodenough

It was 1976 and John Goodenough, then in his early 50s, had just accepted the position of professor and head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory.

He had no idea that the next six years would form the basis of an electronic revolution that would sweep the world.

Goodenough’s background is fascinating in that from early in his career he felt he had a special calling for a life in research. He was born in 1923 and volunteered for the army immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. He finished his undergraduate degree at Yale University in mathematics before entering the USAAF. “As a young man in search of a calling, I became fascinated by the philosophy of science while struggling to

JOHN GOODENOUGH

“As a young man in search of a calling for my life, I became fascinated by the philosophy of science while struggling to come to terms with a spiritual awakening. One night, I decided that if I were ever to come back from the war and if I were to have the opportunity to go back to graduate school, I would study physics.”

On his arrival at the University of Chicago the professor told Goodenough: “I don’t understand you army veterans. Don’t you know that anyone who has ever done anything interesting in physics had already done it by the time he was your age; and you want to begin now?”

10 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

When Goodenough went to patent his cathodes, no battery company in England, Europe, or the US was interested in assembling a battery with a discharged cathode, so he gave the patent to the AERE Harwell Laboratory. It made a fortune for the patent holders that Goodenough never received.

come to terms with a spiritual awakening,” he says. “One night, I decided that if I were to come back from the war and have the opportunity to go back to graduate school, I would study physics.

“In 1946, while I was still stationed on the tiny island of Terceira in the Azores awaiting my turn to go home, a telegram arrived telling me to report back to Washington in 48 hours.

“There I was informed I had been chosen to study physics or math at the University of Chicago or Northwestern University. So I went immediately to the University of Chicago to register as a graduate student in physics.

When I arrived, the registration officer, Professor Simpson, said to me, “I don’t understand you veterans. Don’t you know that anyone who has ever done anything interesting in physics had already done it by the time he was your age; and you want to begin now?”

After obtaining his PhD at Chicago in 1952 he joined the group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, charged with developing a ferromagnetic ceramic to enable the first random-access memory (RAM) for the digital computer.

Goodenough’s contribution was in the development of the ferrimagnetic, ceramic memory element, a contribution that put him in charge of a ceramics laboratory and gave him a decade in which to explore the magnetic, transport and structural properties of transition-metal compounds.

After moving to Oxford, Goodenough recognized that the layered sulfides would not give the voltage needed to compete with batteries using a conventional aqueous electrolyte, but that an oxide would provide a significantly higher voltage.

From previous work, he knew that layered oxides analogous to the layered sulfides would not be stable, but that discharged LiMO2 oxides could have the same structural architecture as discharged LiTiS2.

Goodenough assigned a visiting physicist from Japan, Koichi Mizushima, the task of working with Goodenough’s postdoc, Philip Wiseman, and a student, Philip Jones, to explore how much Li could be extracted reversibly from layered LiMO2 cathodes, and with M=Co and Ni he found he could extract electrochemically over 50% of the Li at a voltage of around 4.0V versus a lithium anode, nearly double that for the sulfides, before the oxides began to evolve oxygen.

Their groundbreaking findings with

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PEOPLE NEWS — NOBEL PRIZES FOR THE LITHIUM THREE Li1-xCoO2 were published in the Materials Research Bulletin 15, 783-789, (1980). The report concluded with the statement, “Further characteristics of the intrinsic and extrinsic properties of this new system are being made.”

When Goodenough went to patent his cathodes, no battery company in England, Europe, or the US was interested in assembling a battery with a discharged cathode, so he gave the patent to the AERE Harwell Laboratory. It made a fortune for the patent holders that Goodenough never received. But as a committed Christian, Goodenough always believed his reward was what the product could do.

Nevertheless, with his postdoc Peter Bruce, now a professor in St Andrews, Scotland, and a new student, MGSK Thomas, Goodenough continued to work at the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford to demonstrate that the Li+-ion mobility in Li1xCoO2 was even higher than that in the sulfide cathode LiTiS2. This finding meant that a Li1-xCoO2 cathode would provide the needed voltages and rates that would usher in what was termed later on as the ‘wire-less revolution’.

1970s they discovered that the polymer was superconductive at low temperatures.

Yoshino was particularly fascinated by the possibility that the chemical could be used as the negative electrode for a new type of rechargeable battery, and he envisaged using lithium as the source of the ion exchange.

Yoshino was also aware of the work that Stanley Whittingham had achieved and that a commercial version of sorts, with a titanium disulfide cathode and a lithium aluminium anode, had been produced by Exxon.

But there were many things wrong with the battery. While charging, lithium tends to form dendrites, which cause short-circuiting and fire risk.

Moreover, the high chemical reactivity of metallic lithium resulted in poor battery characteristics, including inadequate cycle durability due to side reactions, and what appeared to be the insurmountable problem of the inherent risk of a thermal runaway reaction.

The batteries weren’t cheap, either.

But it was when Yoshino came

across Goodenough’s work that he had his own ‘Eureka’ moment.

In 1979 Goodenough had identified that lithium cobalt oxide could be the positive electrode material of choice.

Shortly afterwards Rachid Yazami, a Moroccan researcher working at the French Centre for Scientific Research, showed that graphite could work as a negative electrode — although there were many failings of this in practice.

“The combination of lithium cobalt oxide with polyacetylene instead of graphite on the negative electrode showed an exciting way forward,” says Yoshino. “We at last had the building blocks to make a working cell that had commercial possibilities.”

There were a host of difficulties ahead of Yoshino, including the choice of electrolyte, separator, current collector and the development of a winding mechanism to create greater surface area.

By 1983 Yoshino had created the first test-tube cell. The lithium ion battery had come of age.

Although this first cell was functional, the low real density of polyacety-

AKIRA YOSHINO

Completing the puzzle: Yoshino

At the same time, a similar part of the lithium battery puzzle was being put together in Japan with a young research scientist called Akira Yoshino, working for the chemical giant Asahi Kasei.

With a master’s degree from Kyoto University in April 1972, he joined Asahi Kasei, with whom he was to happily spend his entire career. He represents the firm to this day.

The onset of the oil crisis in 1973 meant that the issue of energy — its use, value and importance as a resource — had become one of the most debated areas of that decade’s science and politics.

Meanwhile the age of the Walkman was just around the corner and leading electronics firms were already racing to develop ever smaller and more powerful gadgets.

In 1981 Yoshino became the lead researcher looking at how a relatively obscure compound, polyacetylene, could be put to practical purposes.

Polyacetylene is an interesting organic polymer in that it is capable of conducting electricity when doping (adding impurities into the raw material), making a compound sometimes dubbed as a plastic metal. In the early

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“Basically we used the concept of winding used in making condensers and for that we needed a large machine that could do this and several visits to various manufacturers, It took us about two years to refine this part of the process to create a prototype.”

Yoshino joined at a pivotal moment in the life of the specialist chemical and electrochemical markets. The onset of the oil crisis in 1973 meant that the issue of energy — its use, value and importance as a resource — had become one of the most debated areas of that decade’s science and politics. Meanwhile too the age of the

Walkman was just around the corner.

Yoshino’s task was far from simple — there were basic electrochemical design problems that needed to be resolved before anyone could conceive of working out the process to put it on to a manufacturing line.

Broadly speaking, everything had to be worked out from first principles.

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PEOPLE NEWS — NOBEL PRIZES FOR THE LITHIUM THREE “The combination of lithium cobalt oxide with polyacetylene instead of graphite on the negative electrode showed an exciting way forward,” says Yoshino. “We at last had the building blocks to make a working cell that had commercial possibilities.” lene posed limitations on its capacity and chemical stability.

Yoshino searched for a new carbonaceous material to use as a negative electrode. The organic electrolyte used at the time was propylene carbonate, which was unsuitable for working with graphite — it decomposed during charging when graphite was used, and the use of solid electrolyte resulted in electrical resistance which was too high to enable practical charging and discharging.

So Yoshino studied the suitability of other carbonaceous materials at the negative electrode. He finally hit on one crystalline structure that provided greater capacity without causing decomposition of the propylene carbonate electrolyte.

The secondary battery he successfully made — by hand — in the laboratory based on this new combination of component materials enabled stable charging and discharging over many cycles for a long period.

Arrival of the patents

The result was two patents — JP198923 in May 1985 and its US counterpart US4668595A, the following May. The next task was how to commercialize the intellectual property.

“To take anything from the lab work bench to the production line takes something like 10 years, sometimes much longer,” says one battery veteran.

“To introduce a new battery chemistry as a mainstream product with everything from the safety and performance guarantees was incredible.”

Indeed Yoshino’s task was far from simple — there were basic electrochemical design problems that needed to be resolved before anyone could conceive of working out the process to put it onto a manufacturing line.

Broadly speaking, everything had to be worked out from first principles.

“Finding the right current collector was a long process as we had to work our way through a whole variety of metal combinations and thicknesses,” Yoshino recalls. “I eventually found that aluminium was the best current

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collector for the positive electrode and copper foil for the negative. The thickness of each was around 10µm.”

Yoshino’s use of aluminium was one of the most important aspects of this stage. Previously, only precious metals such as gold and platinum were considered able to withstand a high voltage of 4V or more. However, Yoshino found that aluminum foil was suitable for use as positive electrode current collector material because a passivation layer — effectively a protective layer — forms on the aluminum surface.

And the process of actually making the electrodes required new technology to be developed.

The voltage barrier of an aqueous — ie water based — electrolyte of around 1.2V had to be overcome by using a non-aqueous electrolyte. But that raised problems due to its lower electro-conductivity and a lower current density was needed to prevent heat being generated. To get around this Yoshino increased the surface area by devising flat-sheet thin-film electrodes wound into a coil shape.

“Basically we used the concept of winding used in making condensers and for that we needed a large machine that could do this and several visits to various manufacturers, It took us about two years to refine this part of the process,” says Yoshino, “to create a prototype”.

Separators too

The choice of separator was another issue that had to be resolved. Here, Yoshino had a stroke of luck. “At that time I was based in our R&D laboratory in Kawasaki and by a stroke of good fortune in the next building to ours they were working on new polyethylene separator material.

“It was incredibly handy just to walk outside the offices to see how well they were doing. Safety, of course, was a prime concern — it was always on our mind,” he says. “What we developed in fact was a microporous polyethylene membrane for use as a separator.”

This acted like a fuse when an electric plug blows. Excessive heat causes the material to melt and the porosity of

the membrane closes effectively stopping the current and acting as a brake to thermal runaway.

Yoshino also devised what would probably best be described as ‘peripheral technology’ which was instrumental to the development of a practical lithium ion battery. This included safety device mechanisms, protective circuit technology, and techniques for charging and discharging. One key example is a positive temperature coefficient device which is sensitive to both electric current and temperature. Incorporation of this in the battery resulted in greatly improved safety, particularly against overcharging.

Yoshino worked on a variety of design prototypes and in 1986, a US company was contracted to make a number of semi-commercial prototype cells.

These were then subjected to abuse testing — mistreating the cells in the worst of expected conditions — to see how they would perform in real life and exceptional circumstances.

The results proved positive. They had the required level of safety to be used by the general public and this cleared the way to the battery’s commercialization.

Mass manufacture

Asahi Kasei working with Toshiba released their first mass-manufactured lithium cells in 1992. The two firms were a few months behind Sony which had already been racing to develop lithium cells but it is the Yoshino prototype and thinking has prevailed.

But most importantly, the way was finally open to mass adoption of a battery technology that would change the world completely. Portable electronics would be transformed forever, the world of telecoms was to be revolutionized and, with the rise and rise of hand-held cell phones, the internet — still hardly born in the early 1990s — would dominate the planet.

The jump from Whittingham’s early reflections and experiments on intercalation to Goodenough’s huge leap forward in understanding the practical elements of theory to Yoshino’s genius in assembling a working battery had taken less than a generation. Their impact on the world will last forever.

This article was compiled from previous interviews conducted by Batteries International and sister magazine Energy Storage Journal between 2012 and 2019. Our thanks to all three Nobel Laureates for their time speaking to us.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 13

PEOPLE NEWS

Digatron appoints new VPs in sales and product management Battery testing and formation system maker Digatron, has appointed Marc Thielmanns as vice president of sales and marketing, the firm said on September 2.

He replaces Friedrich Grupe, who becomes vice president project and product management. Both men are based at the company’s headquarters in Aachen, Germany.

Thielmanns worked for Digatron before, as sales manager for the Asian market, between 2002 and 2008, before moving to the German financial services platform Jumo as head of the sales department.

“Thielmanns will be responsible for the strategic direction of sales and marketing and will help to further strengthen Digatron’s position in the market,” said the company. “He will be supported by the project manage-

Thielmanns new VP sales, marketing

Grube: onward and upward

ment, which will be headed by Grupe, and the close so-operation of the two departments will allow customers to be seamlessly supported at sales and technical levels.”

Kevin Campbell, CEO Digatron Power Electronics said: “With Marc Thielmanns, we are gaining a proven sales expert and experienced strategist.”

Walicki retires as president of Clarios and BCI Clarios president Joe Walicki has retired after “three decades of leadership in the automotive and energy storage industry,” Battery Council International said on September 4. He has also retired as president of BCI’s board of directors.

No replacement for the Clarios position had been named at the time of going to press, but in the same announcement, BCI said EnerSys CEO David Shaffer would replace Walicki as president of the BCI board.

Joe Walicki

14 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

Although Walicki had been with Johnson Controls for 30 years, he was only made president and CEO in May 2019, after Johnson Controls Power Solutions had been sold to the asset management firm Brookfield Business Partners for $13.2 billion in November 2018.

Walicki’s promotion coincided with the Power Solutions re-launch in May with the name Clarios. Walicki said there were no plans to move the facility from its home in Wisconsin, nor make any personnel changes.

In an interview with Batteries International at the time, he said there would also be no immediate changes of strategy other than a renewed focus on emerging market sales, which he called a ‘runway opportunity’.

“After more than 30 years at Johnson Controls, now Clarios, I am looking forward to the next chapter in my life,” Walicki said. “I have never been as proud as I am today of the Clarios team and the work they have done and will continue to perform under its leadership.”

BCI executive vice president Kevin Moran thanked Walicki for his contributions and service to BCI, and welcomed Shaffer as president of the board.

“We are eager to see where his

leadership will take us, as the organization is poised to enter a new strategic planning phase,” he said.

BCI’s Shaffer said: “Energy storage has never been more important or exciting, and our industry continues to meet the world’s energy storage needs as they transition to decarbonization.

“BCI has a vital role to help its members adapt to an evolving technology and regulatory landscape.”

Frank Fleming wins International Lead Award Frank Fleming, one of the cutting edge R&D figures in the lead battery business, was this year’s winner of the International Lead Award for his services to the industry. The award was presented on the opening day of the 18th Asia Battery Conference held in Nusa Dua, Bali on September 3.

A full report on the award and Frank Fleming’s contribution to the industry can be found later in this issue of Batteries International.

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PEOPLE NEWS

Microporous appoints Brad Reed as director of corporate development For the record, separator firm Microporous appointed Brad Reed as director of corporate development in August, to oversee growth in new products and markets for its lead-acid battery separators.

Reed came to Microporous from chemicals and materials firm Ingevity, where he focused on activated carbon for gasoline vapour capture in lightduty vehicles. Before that, he was executive vice president and general manager for lithium ion battery separator firm Celgard.

“In my corporate development role at Microporous, I will be focused primarily on the lead acid market,” Reed said. “Microporous’ current plans for new product technology in our core market is absorptive glass mat separators for the VRLA battery market in partnership with Zisun (China) and SIFA) Italy.

“The battery separator requirements for lead acid and Li-ion batteries are very different. However, Microporous’ current strategic focus is on the lead acid battery market.

Brad Reed

“Battery electrochemistry is very complex, and the battery performance demands change as the market demands change.

“Even though lead acid batteries were invented more than 150 years ago, new product demands such as mild hybrid technologies (start/stop, regenerative braking) are shifting market demand away from traditional flooded designs to enhanced flooded and VRLA battery designs.

“These new lead acid battery

technologies, in turn, create demand for new lead acid battery separator technology. I anticipate this market change cycle to continue, driving new battery separator requirements and technology improvements. “‘Good’ separators are extremely important to the battery market as they are a key contributor to battery performance, such as charge/ discharge rates and battery life, and battery safety.”

Reed said that in the short term he would focus on the active development work associated with Microporous’ existing product lines.

“In the long term, I plan to assist with a range of strategic growth initiatives and provide process guidance to cultivate and prioritize innovative project growth initiatives,” he said.

In May, Microporous announced a ‘definitive, exclusive and immediate global partnership’ with Zisun, a Chinese technology company that specializes in micro-glass fibres and wet laid engineered micro-glass media.

Amine, Blaabjerg share 2019 Global Energy Prize Professors Khalil Amine of the US and Frede Blaabjerg of Denmark have won the 2019 Global Energy Prize for their work on energy storage and integration technologies.

Alexander Novak, the Russian energy minister presented the award to the scientists in a ceremony on October 3 during the Russian Energy Week International Forum in Moscow The prize, set up by the Global Energy Association, annually honours outstanding research that affects lives across the planet and provides technology addressing energy challenges. The laureates were selected from 39 contenders from 12 nations. They share the $600,000 prize money and medals.

Khalil Amine of Argonne National Laboratory was recognized for his outstanding contribution to the development of efficient electrical energy storage technology. Frede Blaabjerg of Aalborg University CORPE (Center Of Reliable Power Electronics), was recognized for his outstanding technical contribution to the design of power management systems enabling the integration of renewable power.

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Amine, the most cited battery scientist in the world, is the author of advanced materials and battery systems for electric vehicles, electric power, satellites, military and medical industries. One of his latest innovations is a superoxide battery yielding up to five times more energy than lithium-ion batteries.

Blaabjerg is known for the commercial implementation of ways to ensure the reliability of power electronics for the electric power industry. He is responsible for inventions in variable

speed drive technology, widely used in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, for example. Enhancing the energy efficiency of such systems has resulted in energy savings of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Blaabjerg’s converters reduce the costs of energy generated by renewables while enhancing the reliability of generators connected to power distribution networks. These designs allow for steady and reliable performance of large-scale power-supply systems.

Khalil Amine holding the 2019 Global Energy Prize presented by Alexander Novak, Russian energy minister

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 15

PEOPLE NEWS

Huibert van Deutekom wins ICBR award Huib van Deutekom, one of the pioneers of Ni-MH battery technology and a noted developer for various processes for battery recycling has won this year’s ICBR Honorary Award. This is the first year of the award’s existence.

The prize-giving took place on September 18 at the ICBR 2019 Battery Recycling Congress in Lyon.

Van Deutekom, now 84, was the engineer behind the thinking of the first NiMH batteries used in Toyota Prius and Lexus Hybrid cars from the 1990s onwards.

Van Deutekom started his career at Dutch electronics firm Philips in 1956 and in the 1960s became the project manager researching nickel cadmium batteries. Part of his remit was to make Philips’ shavers cordless.

“One day in 1975,” he recalls. “We were all drinking coffee with the electrochemical group of the Philips Research Laboratory discussing NiCd processes and someone mentioned hearing a rumour that samariumcobalt alloys formed hydrides with hydrogen gas during smelting.

“We immediately tried to see whether this hydride formation could also happen in an electrolyte. It did!”

In effect Van Deutekom had discovered a way of making sealed NiMH batteries, so enabling higher voltage batteries with a potential endless number of cells in series, with built-in electrochemical protection against overcharge and over-discharge.

He filed patents for the battery system in 1978 and 1980. Philips transferred the know-how to its battery partner Matsushita which in turn

was working with Toyota. The two were later to form Panasonic.

“The rest became history. Using our patent Toyota made the first hybrid vehicles: the Prius and the Lexus,” he says.

“Toyota jumped at the technology.

Because of the high voltage series aspects, they said ‘we now can build a four cylinder car with six cylinder performance!’”

In many senses the introduction of the NiMH battery with its intricate BMS was the precursor for the lithium powered EV. After leaving Philips in 1991, van Deutekom set up his own consultancy in Veldhoven in the Netherlands where he still works.

His mission thinking — batteries are chemical factories and harnessed by standards into consumer goods — sums up a lot of his later work which for the last three decades has been deeply involved with recycling from three different aspects: the safety aspects surrounding the issue, ways to mechanize the process; and discussions with other parties and research-

ers of the regulatory framework that is needed.

Some of his work looked at waste battery sorting processes in particular patents for sorting consumer batteries in 2000 and in 2001 a patent for lithium battery recycling from his work in Switzerland.

Van Deutekom was an early and influential advocate of both mechanized sorting of batteries — now, more or less, the norm — as well as the safety procedures around them.

Most recently he has been investigating dismantling lithium batteries in a protective atmosphere and fire extinguishing equipment for lithium fires.

“The ICBR Honorary Award is presented for remarkable commitments and outstanding achievements in the battery and battery recycling industry,” said Jean-Pol Wiaux, chairman of the ICBR steering committee.

“During his professional career, Huibert actively contributed to the development of battery technologies and recycling processes while considering both environmental and safety issues,” said Wiaux.

“He is undoubtedly a pioneer who deserves great respect. With his enormous knowledge, skills and never-ending curiosity, he has had a significant impact on the battery recycling industry.”

Van Deutekom said: “It has always been a great honour for me to work with you, And if you’re wondering how I feel right now, here at the ICBR with this prize in my hand, I can tell you: I feel as if I were on top of Mount Everest, enjoying the entire universe.”

‘Prepare to be amazed!’ BCI opens for innovation award entries Battery Council International has started accepting submissions for the 2020 Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz Innovation Award, the organization announced on September 11.

The awards, which are now in their fifth year, celebrate innovations in six categories — sustainability, safety, cost, performance, uniqueness and value.

Entries for next year’s award must be submitted by February 7, 2020.

“Prepare to be amazed!” said Kevin Moran, executive vice president of BCI. “We expect

18 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

there will be any number of astounding submissions for 2020, all highlighting the tremendous focus our industry has demonstrated in improving our processes, products, and our stewardship.”

This year’s winner was RSR Technologies for its work with the Argonne National Laboratory, which resulted in the production of a new lead alloy, SUPERSOFTHYCYCLE. The alloy enables lead batteries to function at twice current standards, and performance was verified by

studying real-time crystallization of lead plates using the ANL’s Advanced Photo Source.

Microporous and Narada received honourable mentions for their submissions, the former for its dynamic charge acceptance booster, the latter for its large-scale application of lead-carbon batteries in grid-level frequency regulation energy storage systems.

Next year’s BCI Convention and Power Mart Expo will be held in Henderson, near Las Vegas on April 26-28.

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NEWS

EnerSys buys thin plate pure lead battery maker NorthStar EnerSys, the international battery manufacturer, has bought competitor NorthStar for $182.5 million, the firm announced on September 19.

It will install a high-speed production line at one of NorthStar’s two factories in Springfield, Missouri, adding $175 million of production capacity with a production rate three times that of existing lines.

NorthStar’s TPPL batteries are close in design and performance to the EnerSys TPPL brand NexSys, which marked a sales milestone on September 30. EnerSys said it had reached 50,000 sold in the US since the batteries were launched there in 2011.

The NexSys range was launched in EMEA under the XFC brand in 2011, then changed to NexSys and sold globally in 2015, the company said.

The EnerSys acquisition means it is the only major company to make TPPL batteries.

David Shaffer, EnerSys president, said: “In line with our previously disclosed strategy to increase sales of premium products we are excited to announce the acquisition of NorthStar, which will enable EnerSys to dramatically accelerate our sales for TPPL batteries.

“The manufacturing processes and quality standards of NorthStar are very similar to EnerSys TPPL production. It will require a modest capital investment to convert the NorthStar factories to build our battery products over a six-month period.”

The company said the deal would mean $40 million in annual savings could be made by minimizing transoceanic freight because manufacture could be done locally and for longer, meaning more efficient production runs could be made.

“This acquisition combines worldclass complementary products and expedites $500 million of TPPL production capacity when combined with the new high-speed TPPL production line and supporting equipment,” the statement said.

“Available floor space at the existing NorthStar facility will accommodate our new high-speed TPPL production line, preserving over $100 million of existing TPPL production capacity.”

EnerSys was founded in 1945 in Sweden and named Svenska Batteri. Three

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Shaffer: “The manufacturing processes and quality standards of NorthStar are very similar to EnerSys TPPL production. It will require a modest capital investment to convert the NorthStar factories to build our battery products.”

years later Swedish mining and smelting firm Boliden bought the company, only to be sold in 1961 to VARTA Batteri, part of VARTA Industrial Battery.

In 1995 the firm was again sold, this time to BTR, which changed its name to Hawker five years later — and when it merged with EnerSys in 2002, the battery division finally became part of EnerSys.

The joys of TPPL

NorthStar will be a big boost to the company, with its range of thin plate pure plate batteries as well as its cooling battery cabinets, tubular plate batteries and ACE system — a wireless battery monitoring system that won the Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz award for innovation at the BCI convention in 2017.

Headed by CEO Hans Liden, the company was set up in 2000 and headquartered in Sweden, with a site in Springfield, Missouri, US. NorthStar installed a 1MWh battery storage facility in Springfield to provide back-up

power for the City Utilities grid, using its Blue+ thin plate lead batteries.

Liden, who has been CEO since August 2008, worked for four years at industrial tools and equipment maker Atlas Copco before joining NorthStar.

He would not comment about the EnerSys purchase to Batteries International. EnerSys would only release an official statement.

“With two production facilities in Springfield, NorthStar manufactures and distributes batteries nearest in design and performance to EnerSys TPPL products,” the company said. “The acquired companies generated $157 million in revenue for the 12 months ending August 31, 2019 and adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) of $14 million.”

Geoffrey May, director of Focus Consulting, was group director of technology at EnerSys between 19912000, when the company was known as Hawker Batteries. “I knew that NorthStar was looking for a buyer, but I’m a little bit surprised it’s EnerSys, because there is nothing NorthStar can do that EnerSys can’t do itself — they have product lines that are complementary and they are serving the same markets,” he said.

“It doesn’t improve its product lines because it can do all the same things.

It probably doesn’t improve its geographical spread either because EnerSys is bigger and more widely spread.

“I thought North Star would have been sold to someone in the industry who wanted to expand their product lines — and I don’t know who the unsuccessful bidders were.

“However the fact that EnerSys has taken a competitor in the lead acid industry is interesting for the future of the industry — it shows that they want to continue to expand their business, which can only be good news for the industry.”

“The fact that EnerSys has taken a competitor in the lead acid industry is interesting for the future of the industry — it shows that they want to continue to expand their business, which can only be good news for the business” Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 19

NEWS

East Penn takes stake in lithium battery manufacturer Navitas Lead battery manufacturing giant East Penn announced on August 16 it had bought a majority interest in lithium battery firm Navitas Systems.

East Penn says the move will accelerate its expansion into motive power applications and allow it to integrate into other market segments.

East Penn said the acquisition was in line with plans to provide ‘the most robust array of optimized energy

storage system solutions’.

Michigan-based Navitas Systems was formerly MicroSun IESS, LLC, before the company bought A123 Systems’ Government Solutions Group in 2013 to form Navitas.

It makes larger-format lithium battery technology and systems for heavy-duty off-road equipment, deep cycle motive and traction, mission-critical stationary and standby, transportation, defence and renewable

energy.

East Penn, traditionally a lead acid battery manufacturer, announced in 2016 that it intended to expand its range to lithium ion batteries.

In April 2019 it released a Ready Power lithium battery for forklift trucks, but this is likely to be the first of many new offerings by the company, which said Navitas’ lithium research and development expertise ‘will add to East Penn’s

current lithium R&D program’.

“We are happy to be joining in partnership with such a strong, well established company,” said East Penn CEO Chris Pruitt.

PowerGen acquires Rafiki Power to boost micro-grids in Africa Micro utility developer PowerGen Renewable Energy bought Rafiki Power, the off-grid specialist arm of European energy giant E.On, on August 19.

The acquisition combines two leading micro-grid companies in Africa, which

will help build momentum for private utilities to operate within rural communities on the continent, a PowerGen company statement said.

Both Power Gen and Rafiki Power, the statement said, had been instru-

mental in the new sector of private utilities bringing power to rural Africans.

The combination of the two will give PowerGen micro-grid assets, a project pipeline, software IP and human resources, and it means PowerGen can pro-

Lithium Werks buys systems integrator LiiON to expand global performance Lithium Werks, the battery manufacturer, announced on September 5 it has bought the storage systems integrator LiiON, saying the deal should be finalized by the end of the year.

LiiON provides integration services for batteries and management systems in standby, UPS and telecoms applications, as well as technology migration, installation and preventative management programs and consultation services on identifying the most appropriate chemistries and battery types per application.

“As a result of this acquisition, Lithium Werks will be able to offer customers a one-stop platform for fully integrated solutions, starting with the battery cells and modules and extending all the way up the value chain to sophisticated energy management systems and software solutions,” said Joe Fischer, CEO, Lithium Werks.

The LiiON brand will be retained and its management will join Lithium Werks’ workforce, which will help extend the brand across Europe and Asia, the

20 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

company said.

It already has UL certified back-up power installations in modular, cloud, collocation and hyperscale applications across datacenter, banking, healthcare, government, retail, industrial and utility segments.

“Lithium Werks is expanding quickly as it continues to meet a near insatiable demand for batteries,” said Fischer, who said the acquisition coincided with the company’s launch of two product lines at the Battery Show in Michigan in September.

vide 50,000 people with power across various African countries.

“We are excited to combine our experience, knowledge, resources and cultures to progress towards a shared vision of transforming lives by building the energy system of the future in Africa,” said Aaron Cheng, president of PowerGen. Jessica Stephens, global co-ordinator of the Africa Mini-Grid Association, formed last year, said that mini-grids made the most sense in communities in rural areas. Of the 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who don’t have access to electricity, 80%85% of them lived in rural areas, she said.

“The International Energy Agency says that minigrids and other distributed renewables are the most cost effective way to deliver electricity to those people,” she said. “Centralized grids will also play an important role too, but there has to be an integrated approach that includes minigrids.”

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NEWS

Gridtential completes largest ever manual production run of Silicon Joule batteries Bipolar battery company Gridtential has completed the largest production run yet of its Silicon Joule batteries in an event with its sixth licensee Crown Battery, the company announced on October 21.

It would not say what that run was but Gridtential says the rate of manual production reached less than five minutes per unit.

The event ‘significantly exceeded yield and throughput targets established for the current design’, the company said.

The companies ran the production line at Crown Battery’s facility in Fremont, Ohio, using an advanced pasting system by Wirtz Manufacturing.

Also at the event, were bat-

“Industrialization is a key step in bringing innovation to an industry and we are very pleased to see Silicon Joule batteries being produced seamlessly on the production floor at Crown Battery,” said Gridtential CEO John Barton.

“We feel fortunate to work with like-minded battery manufacturers and equipment suppliers to produce products that open up new markets and extend the dominance of lead batteries in the energy storage arena by harnessing more of lead’s performance potential.”

Gridtential was founded in 2011 to develop its Silicon Joule bipolar technology, which replaces the lead grid and cell connecting lead-strap material inside

a traditional lead battery with a silicon substrate that can be inserted without altering much of the existing production line — the early processes of paste mixing and curing are unchanged, as is the more expensive charging and formation equipment.

Gridtential says its technology removed up to 40% of the lead required in a traditional battery and the associated weight by eliminating the lead grid and strap material.

It says it also increases cycle life by up to five times, improves DCA by up to 10 times, extends operating temperatures by 10+°C and reduces the cost over the life of the battery by up to 80%, the company says.

Pivotal buys bipolar plate technology from Integral

fit for this chemistry, which will help accelerate our entry into the market.

“The acquisition was critical in our strategy to develop and commercialize a bipolar lead acid battery.

We have not announced a launch date, however Integral has already produced generation 1 prototype batteries, and we are working towards a Gen 2 prototype for 2020.

“Exact timing is partially driven by strategic partnerships and investments.”

“We’re excited about this sale and the new long-term relationship it creates with Pivotal,” said Integral CEO Doug Bathauer. “The sale not only provides us with current revenue, it also gives us another revenue source from future sales of our ElectriPlast line of conductive plastic needed to manufacture the bipolar battery.”

Target markets for the batteries include stop-start and 48V applications, lowspeed EVs, wheelchairs and scooters, and marine, telecoms and grid storage.

Bipolar plate company Integral Technologies has sold all rights and patents to its proprietary technology to Pivotal Battery, a corporation that was set up in March solely to commercialize the batteries, Pivotal confirmed on October 4.

Pivotal was co-founded by former Axion Power CEO Richard Bogan and John Boesel, owner of the company JB Diversified Financial.

The $2 million acquisition, which is in addition to a $1.8 million note, includes two pending bipolar patents and all of Integral’s prototypes, trade secrets and know-how related to bipolar technology.

Integral will also receive 1.5 million shares of Pivotal Battery common stock, which means a 15% ownership. Integral will be left with long-term revenue streams via licence agree-

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tery machine manufacturers Sovema Group, TBS Engineering and MAC Engineering. They would have been there to see how manual production could be mechanized — a tricky process given the varying and highly delicate pressures needed in the sealing process.

“Manufacturability was a key objective for the event and with the benefit of premanufactured materials, including treated silicon wafers, the rate of manual production reached less than five minutes per unit.,” said Gridtential.

The batteries will be filled, formed and shipped with evaluation agreements to customers and investment partners, including two unnamed US automakers.

ments and royalties, as well as all rights to its other technologies — such as heating devices, antennas and fuses — that have not yet been monetized, the company said.

Central to the technology is Integral’s subsidiary company ElectriPlast’s highly conductive plastic materials, which form the foundation of the plates and have enabled the creation of highly conductive polymer compounds needed in applications where conductivity has to be compatible with the conductivity of certain metals.

“The ElectriPlast hybrid conductive material is a critical component of our bipolar battery,” Bogan told BESB. “Without it, we believe bipolar batteries cannot be produced in the volume of the economies of scale we are seeking.”

Under the agreement, Pivotal will have to buy ElectriPlast for the next 10 years, and for the same period Integral will not be able to conduct business that competes with the technology sold to Pivotal. The 10-year period can be extended.

“Our interest in Integral is that we view energy storage as an excellent platform for investment and growth but the technologies we were exploring seemed far from commercialization,” said Bogan.

“The Integral technology was more advanced and attractive to us, especially since Integral focused on a lead acid chemistry for its first battery, which we believe has numerous advantages over other chemistries.

We expect lead acid batteries to remain the dominant battery technology and our bipolar plates are a good

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 23

NEWS

ENTEK announces plans to double Asian production next year International separator firm ENTEK, announced at the Asian Battery Conference in Bali, Indonesia in September that it intended to double capacity at its Indonesian plant next year.

The firm has been making clear its intentions to expand in Asia for years, first announcing in September 2016 that it planned to expand in the continent while remaining cautious about China.

Less than six months later, in February 2017, it had signed a deal with Indonesia-based polyethylene battery separator producer

Separindo to make and sell P/E separators for flooded lead acid batteries in Asia.

At the 18ABC on September 3, ENTEK vice president for global sales Clint Beutelschies said the new plant would double its capacity to more than 90 million square metres and its floor area to 15,000 square metres, leaving room for more expansion.

“We’ll be installing one new production line that is capable of matching what the other lines can do. It’s probably the most advanced separator line in the world.

It’s a beast!”

The venture in Indonesia is a joint one with the Japanese multinational NSG Group, which means the participants can all share technology and manufacturing capabilities.

“Our corporate cultures and approach to business are identically aligned,” said Masa Otsubo, NSG general manager for sales of the battery separator division.

The new upgrade will focus on P/E separators for start-stop batteries, a market that is expected to boom in Asia, particularly with the growing demand in Japan.

ENTEK is the largest

Clint Beutelschies

manufacturer of separators for automotive batteries in the Americas and Europe but sees ‘a great growth opportunity in Asia’, Beutelschies said.

Lead battery maker Leoch plans 4GW lithium battery factory in China Leoch Battery, China’s fourth largest lead battery maker, plans to open a lithium battery factory with a capacity of 4GW a year, chairman and founder Dong Li told Batteries International on October 23.

The factory will be sited in eastern China’s Anhui province and its batteries will be used in three main areas: telecoms, data centres and net-

works; starter batteries and motorcycles; and low-speed EVs, motive and traction applications.

Dong Li says the company intends to place its lithium products alongside its lead, as the newer chemistry gains market share.

“Lithium will take a lot of market share but it will not kill lead for many reasons such as cost, recycling, the

environment, and safety,” he said. “The global market now for lead batteries is $45 billion, for lithium it’s $30 billion. I predict that by 2025 lead will be worth around $50 billion, lithium double that, $100 billion.

“For Leoch, we will be a company of two arms — lead and lithium. Lead will still take the major part, and at the moment we are not

China’s largest lead producer announces plans to make batteries China’s largest lead producer, Henan Yuguang Gold and Lead, is to set up a lead-acid battery production line ‘as part of a downstream expansion’, news reports said on October 16.

Reuters said the company, which is based in central China’s Henan Province, had not decided on a capacity or location for the plant, according to deputy chief engineer Li Gui.

The company already recycles lead batteries, setting up its waste lead battery recycling network system in 2007, which includes automatic separation for lead batteries with ‘bottom blowing smelting renewable lead technology’.

It means that Yuguang, which plans to set up 67 lead battery collection and storage stations in six provinces across the People’s Republic, will have

24 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

a closed-loop network of lead production, manufacture, collection and recycling.

Henan Yuguang Gold and Lead was founded in 1997. It has a market capitalization of around Rmb5 billion ($700 million) and employs some 3,700 people.

“We want to gradually form a perfect secondary recycling usage industrial chain,” Li was quoted by Reuters as saying.

interested in other chemistries as they are more niche.”

As well as adding lithium to its portfolio, Dong Li still wants to give it competition — which it is hoping to achieve with bipolar technology through its work with bipolar firm Gridtential. “We have invested in Gridtential,” he said. “It’s challenging, but it’s moving.

The technology is there and we are going to try to commercialize it in China in EV, hybrid and data centre applications.

“The future, say the next 15 to 20 years, will be 48V bipolar batteries for hybrid vehicles, starter batteries, motive and network applications.”

Leoch was officially founded by Dong Li in 1999, so is marking its 20th anniversary.

Based in the southern city of Shenzhen, it has plants in the UK, US, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Singapore, India, Australia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and South Africa, and employs 11,000 people.

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NEWS

Exide Industries moves into e-rickshaw manufacture Exide Industries, one of India’s largest lead battery makers, has taken advantage of the country’s burgeoning e-rickshaw industry by launching its first model, the Exide Neo, the company said on October 16.

It is the first vehicle the battery maker has produced, and will be fitted with batteries that the company has tailor-made for e-rickshaws, the Exide E-Ride Plus, or the Exide E-Ride Tubular Plus.

The vehicle is going to be launched in select markets in India, and be made available through the company’s network of dealers, the company said.

Arun Mittal, Exide’s director automotive, said the company had rented space at Dankuni in West Bengal for assembling the rickshaws which would be fitted with batteries made at the firm’s unit at Haldia about 100km away.

The batteries will account for 40% of the vehicle’s cost at factory gate.

In an interview with the daily newspaper, The Hindu, Mittal said the firm was anticipating a Rp1,200 million ($17 million) boost to its top-line in its first full year of operations.

The Exide Neo would come from components 80% imported from China and 20% from India.

“The e-rickshaw category has seen phenomenal growth in India in the last few years and we have been an integral part of it since inception, through our offerings of robust lead acid batteries,” said CEO and managing director Gautam Chatterjee.

“We see a tremendous opportunity to now offer a complete, technologically advanced package to the e-rickshaw operator that will be reliable with the least downtime.”

“The marketing and service network for the new product has been already put in place. Exide Neo will be gradually introduced across the country in a phased manner,” a statement said.

While these vehicles would come fitted with conventional 48V lead acid batteries, Exide (see facing page) is also working on a project to run erickshaws with lithium-ion batteries.

Talk of finance for these batteries is through a leasing model.

Mittal indicated that the price of the Exide Neo would be higher than those found in the so-called ‘unorganized

26 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

market’ due to safety and comfort features. The total package, which would include chargers would provide better mileage and less downtime.

Exide will be joining a rapidly expanding market and will be tackling two of the major established e-rickshaw players — Mahindra Electric and TVS Motor head on.

Other firms such as Piaggio Vehicles that make auto-rickshaws using conventional fossil fuels are also making forays into the EV sector. Piaggio, the Indian arm of the Italian carmaker announced this summer it was readying the launch of a fully electric three

The Exide Neo is going to be launched in select markets in India, and be made available through the company’s network of dealers, the company said.

wheeler, production was set to start in September with launch in December.

Unlike Exide where responsibility for charging the e-rickshaw is the owner, Piaggio will be using a business model involving swapping the battery. The arrangement with Sun Mobility allows the initial cost of the vehicle to be lower given that the battery cost is not involved.

As the country lurches towards its goal of making all new vehicles electric by 2030, demand for lead batteries remains high in the e-rickshaw market, where the traditional diesel or petrol-powered three-wheelers are losing ground to e-rickshaws, according to the Economic Times of India.

“About 60 million Indians hop on an e-rickshaw every day, analysts estimate,” says the newspaper. “In a country with limited shared transit options and a vast population of working poor people, the vehicles provide a vital service as well as a decent living for drivers, who are mostly illiterate.”

In the country’s northern cities, where e-rickshaws are concentrated, the vehicles are supplanting autorickshaws, the better-known threewheelers that serve as neighbourhood taxis, seat up to three people and run on diesel, gasoline or natural gas.

“This is a good initiative in many ways,” says L Pugazhenthy, head of the India Lead Zinc Development Association, “Exide Industries has come up with a technologically advanced, e-rickshaw which is ideal for another cross section of the population such as the upper middle class, office goers, employed youths, students and the like who look for clean, comfortable, sophisticated and good looking vehicles for mobility.

“Also, because of the serious air quality related issues in some of our cities as well as the increasing emphasis on climate change, the good old, noise-making auto rickshaws in India are slowly giving way to the new, noise-free e-rickshaws.”

Although auto-rickshaws are safer and faster, a ride in one costs more than a ride in an e-rickshaw, which is less expensive because of the vehicles’ cheaper energy supply and ability to cram in four or more paying passengers.

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NEWS

Exide Industries to assemble Li-ion batteries soon but there is ‘no existential threat’ to lead business Exide Industries, the Indian lead battery maker, will begin assembling lithium ion batteries in December under a contract with Swiss battery maker Leclanché, the company announced on October 16.

The news comes four months after the two firms agreed a joint venture, with Exide in control of 75%, Leclanché 25%.

Managing director and CEO of Exide Industries Gautam Chatterjee said when the deal was signed: “Since the government is focusing on the electric vehicle industry we thought to stay relevant we should go into this.

“We were looking for a company to help develop this and chose Leclanché to work with. Initially it will be limited to buses and two and three wheelers, but gradually this will expand and include all kinds of cars.

“This ideally complements our leading position in the lead acid storage battery market in India and will allow us to take the lead in the lithium-ion battery industry, which is expected to grow significantly in the next few years.”

Earlier in the year, Chatterjee told shareholders at the firm’s annual general meeting on August 3 that he saw ‘no existential threat’ to the future of the lead battery business despite the rising demand for lithium ion batteries and the government’s push for electric vehicles.

He said Exide was poised to face the challenge full on. “It is inevitable that electric vehicles will come. We as a company want to be fully prepared to address the opportunity,” said Chatterjee.

Chatterjee pointed out that irrespective of when widespread EV adoption happens, lead batteries would continue to have a role as the auxiliary battery.

He also pointed out that lead batteries have a price advantage over lithium ones — moreover the prices are more stable — as well as being fully recyclable.

Exide has already made moves to offer lithium batteries — as it has in looking at advanced lead batteries.

In the firm’s annual report this year there was positive news about adoption of other forms of lead batteries.

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The reported noted that in the industrial battery segment, the firm “crossed a significant milestone by developing, during the course of the just-concluded year, 28MWh of battery storage, mainly for micro-grid energy storage applications.

“The advanced Ultrabattery solution, developed with East Penn Manufacturing and Ecoult Pty, Australia, for gridlevel energy storage, has also started to be deployed commercially.

“Together with EPM, the Industrial Battery group has also developed ‘Front Terminal’ AGM VRLA products required by international telecom customers as well as data centres.

“Development of the cutting-edge technology of bipolar battery, in active cooperation with Advanced Battery Concepts (ABC) of the US is on course.

The work is scheduled to move beyond laboratory studies to field testing in the current financial year.”

“It is inevitable that electric vehicles will come.

We as a company want to be fully prepared to address the opportunity” – Gautam Chatterjee THE MOVE INTO EVS The Indian government has created several incentives to increase the number of EVs with its Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles (FAME) schemes, which aim for 30% EV penetration by 2030.

The schemes include demand incentives for EVs and urge the deployment of charging technologies and stations in urban centres.

“However, the hype by over the move into e-vehicles — the Indian government had announced a couple of years ago that all new vehicles will be electric — has vanished,” says says L Pugazhenthy, head of the India Lead Zinc Development Association. “This has mainly been due to the sudden drop in automobile sales.

“Over the last few years India has been importing lithium-ion cells from China, South Korea and Japan; these imports are increasing while there is no indigenous manufacturer of lithium ion cells in India.

“India will eventually see a limited growth in EVs in the coming years, though largely it would be IC enginedriven vehicles meeting the revised emission norms. The key questions, however, are the cost of the lithium battery for the consumer and the facility for fast charging.”

According to the World Economic Forum, customs duties will also be waived on lithium batteries to bring down their cost. At the moment, however, the WEF says EV market presentation is just 1% of total vehicle sales in India and of that, 95% are two-wheelers.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 27

NEWS

ILZDA refutes controversial report findings on ULAB recycling Toxics Link’s recent claims that ‘close to 90% of used lead acid batteries’ reach India’s informal (illegal) recycling sector have been refuted by India Lead Zinc Development Association executive director L. Pugazhenthy (known informally to the industry as Pug).

Toxics Link, an Indian environmental research and advocacy organization set up in 1996, made the claims about the used lead acid batteries (ULABs) in a report released on August 20.

“This conclusion is exaggerated and totally flawed,” says Pug. “By meeting a few battery dealers and tracking the movement of some ULABs in a few states, they have come to a conclusion that is not a true reflection of the national picture.

“By their own admission, there are clearly shortcomings with the methodology that is the basis for the report. Although the report describes how the ULABs are

recycled and highlights the related adverse environmental and health hazards in the informal sector, the broader conclusions of this study are not representative of India’s situation.

“The sector is legislated and operates under an appropriate set of rules for ULAB collection, regulated battery auctions by bulk consumers, and furthermore operates under a registered scheme for green recycling introduced back in 2001, which has worked well in subsequent years.”

The study admits that due to ‘resource constraints’ it only collected information from the four Indian states of Delhi, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, although there are 29 states and several Union Territories in India.

India has about 600 registered ULAB recycling plants across the country.

“The true figure would be closer to 40% informal re-

cycling and 60% recycled in the formal sector,” Pug says.

“The number of ULABs recycled by the informal sector could have been much lower with strict implementation and monitoring by the State Regulatory Boards, which is not the case at present, for a variety of reasons. In which case, the MoEF and CPCB should periodically review the status of ULAB recycling and take corrective actions.”

The study also admits that ‘updated information from regulatory agencies was not available’. It also says it was unable to get information from bulk battery consumers such as railways, defence, telecom companies and the like, which have to auction their batteries periodically to authorised/registered recyclers only.

“Most of these bulk consumers have only been auctioning ULABs to registered recyclers,” says Pug. The recycling rates are calculated against replace-

ILZDA’s Pugazhenthy

ment lead battery sales and not against total domestic sales of batteries. This is because the original equipment market, lead batteries used in new cars, trucks, vans, electric bicycles and the vast number of lead batteries in inverters and commercial solar power installations, are not counted in the initial statistics for lead battery sales.

Official comments from the Ministry of Environment & Forests and Climate Change as well as the Central Pollution Control Board should clarify the true situation for India, Pug says.

PowerTech Water receives $1.5 million to market its lead water treatment technology Water treatment technology company PowerTech Water has received $1.5 million funding that it will use to commercialize its lead battery water treatment technology, the company said on October 3.

The funding has come from venture capital firms Mazarine Ventures, Commonwealth Seed Capital and Harbor Street Ventures, lead investor Bluegrass Angels and other individual investors.

PowerTech Water has developed what it calls CapCo (Capacitive Coagulation) Modules — 1ft-tall (30cm) devices that it says can extract heavy metals, including lead, from 10 gallons

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Lippert: ‘This is the kind of technology that would help the smaller guys’

(37 litres) of water a minute.

Its technology consists of carbon electrodes that attract the metals to them and filter them from the water, which can then be neutral-

ized and poured down the drain. This means major savings for battery manufacturers, such as Trojan and Crown Battery, which PowerTech’s co-founder and CEO Cameron Lippert told Batteries International the company has already supplied with its modules.

“This is the kind of technology that would really help the smaller guys — and we already have half a dozen in the field,” he said.

“A smaller size plant would produce 50,000 tonnes of water per day, six days a week. And for smaller firms, they are small enough to have these problems, but not big enough to have the financial means to

address the problems.”

Lipperton says the technology does not use chemicals, there is no toxic sludge generated and operating expenses are reduced by 90%.

“We are building systems now that do 40-50 gallons per minute,” he said. “The size of the modules can be changed up according to the customer, but ultimately lead will be extracted and given back to battery manufacturers to re-use in making batteries.”

CapCo systems are also being installed by aerospace manufacturers and firms in the automotive industry that need to address their heavy metal effluent problems, Lippert said.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 29

NEWS

Arizona regulator warns of ‘unacceptable hazards and risks’ of lithium batteries An August 2 letter from Arizona regulator Sandra Kennedy says lithium batteries should not be used at utility scale — and she warns that a 250MW lithium ion battery has the energy equivalent to 215 US tons of TNT. The letter, to the Arizona Public Service Company, is in response to two battery fires that were caused when lithium battery cells failed.

The two fires, at the APS Elden Substation facility in Flagstaff in 2012 and the APS McMicken Energy Storage Facility in Surprise in 2019, are examples of why a chemistry should not be used if it ‘includes compounds that can release hydrogen fluoride in the event of a fire and/or explosion’, the letter says.

The investigation also discovered that there was inadequate circuit protection and issues with the temperature sensors within the modules.

“All of this points to unacceptable hazards and risks

Arizona regulator said: “a 250MW lithium ion battery has the energy equivalent to 215 tons of TNT” presented by the current utility-scale lithium ion battery systems using chemistries that could release hydrogen fluoride in the event of a fire or explosion,” the letter says.

It quotes George Crabtree, director of Argonne National Laboratory’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, who says the

problem of thermal runaway with lithium batteries is very well known.

“Knowing now how easily a fire or explosion can evidently occur at these types of relatively small (2MW) lithium ion battery facilities, it appears that a similar fire event at a very large lithium facility (250MW+) would have very severe and

New report shows lead battery industry added $26.3bn to US economy in 2018 A report by the independent research group EDR has revealed new data that shows the lead acid battery industry added $26.3 billion to the US economy in 2018.

The Economic Contribution of the US Lead Battery Industry study, by the Economic Development Research Group, says $10.9 billion of that figure was gross domestic product and $2.4 billion was government revenue.

Commissioned by Battery Council International, the study said the industry was responsible for employing 25,000 people directly, and when

suppliers were factored in, a total of 92,000.

“In the US it’s very common for trade associations to collect this type of information to use with policymakers — to demonstrate that their industry, in this case lead batteries, is important to the economy,” said BCI director of strategic communications Lisa Dry. “This is new data for us though it’s the second report we’ve done — the first was released in 2018 and was the first the industry had conducted to our knowledge.

“There is an emphasis on employment in the

30 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

report because manufacturing jobs in the US are very important as the US is more of a service economy.

“Manufacturing jobs, especially those in our industry that are higher paying, are viewed as gaining a foothold in the middle class.

“There is too much media attention given to lithium-ion batteries and electrification, so it’s important to demonstrate that the lead battery industry continues to grow and has a sustainable advantage as a perfect example of a circular economy.”

potentially catastrophic consequences, and that responders would have a very difficult time trying to handle such an incident,” the letter says.

However, while suggesting several alternatives to using lithium ion batteries, the letter does not suggest lead acid batteries would be a suitable option — even though it compares nickeliron batteries with lead acid.

It also says that other lithium chemistries do not carry the same risks.

Lisa Dry, director of strategic communications with Battery Council International, said the organization had approached the Commission.

“BCI reached out to Commissioner Kennedy directly and provided information for her to consider lead batteries for energy storage,” Dry said. “Her policy staff responded immediately and noted that her letter had generated many responses and ‘brought to light information about a variety of energy storage technologies that were previously unknown’.

“We have provided additional information and offered to provide a technical expert to meet with her or staff to answer any additional questions they may have.”

“The explosive nature of lithium runaway fires has been well known by other parts of the business for a long time,” says one industry commentator. “It is astonishing that the utility sector is just becoming aware of it. They’re following a lithium-only bandwagon rather than thinking of suitability.”

Separately, news reports suggest that South Korea has suffered over 20 separate lithium related fires this year.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

LA County arranges door-to-door health checks of Quemetco battery recycling plant in ‘still studied’ issue Los Angeles County organized a door-to-door public health activity on September 21, giving out information and offering blood tests to residents around the Quemetco lead battery recycling facility in the City of Industry in California, US. The authority said the activity was ‘very successful’, and that 200 residents had been tested.

“The issue is still being studied,” said a spokesperson at the authority.

“The previously issued risk assessment showed some increase in excess cancer risks to community members secondary to arsenic emissions.

“Additional work needs to be completed, such as soil testing for lead, arsenic and other metals on properties near the facility, to fully characterize risks and how to mitigate them.”

A spokesperson from Quemetco, Dan Kramer, was quoted in local newspaper reports as saying the company had funded the blood testing and supported the outreach activity.

Quemetco did not respond to Batteries International’s requests for a comment.

NEWS IN BRIEF Desch Plantpak moves from LPG forklifts to TPPL battery power Desch Plantpak, a Swiss horticultural firm, has switched its forklift fleet from LPG to EnerSys’s TPPL batteries, the firm said on October 22 citing the cost savings it was making.

“The operating costs of electric vehicles are lower than those of combustion engines,” says Bas Langenberg, a planner in Desch’s technical services department.

“Moreover, the trucks are less prone to failure. They’re also lighter and more energy efficient.”

The average operating time of a forklift truck is some 2,000 hours/ year. This high level of availability had led the company to rely entirely on LPG trucks and the combustion engines have been available almost

32 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

In what could well be the biggest outreach effort the LA authority has ever run, more than 100 officials from the Department of Public Health knocked on doors to tell households about safety measures and soil testing, offering free blood tests at a community centre in the Hacienda Heights, where the facility is sited.

They also assessed residents’ awareness of the potential risks posed by the recycling plant.

In February 2019, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors opposed plans by Quemetco to expand its facility, which occupies an area of 13 acres and recycles 10 million used lead batteries a year, producing 120,000 tons of lead.

If the plans had been granted, the site would have operated seven days a week for between 20 and 24 hours a day.

The previous November the DTSC alleged there were 29 violations at the plant and called for wider testing in the area.

“This community lives adjacent to the only operating automobile battery recycling facility on the west coast,” continuously.

On the recommendation of UniCarriers and working with battery supplier EnerSys, Desch ultimately opted for NexSys batteries in the 12 trucks supplied

by UniCarriers. Like lithium-ion batteries, the 48 V/625 Ah batteries allow for interim recharging.

“Our drivers can now connect their trucks to the charging station during their coffee break, for example, so that we can continue operating throughout the hours needed,” Langenberg says. To make interim recharging of the batteries as quick and simple as possible, UniCarriers moved the battery connector to the entry and exit side of the trucks.

Desch Plantpak was coming to an end of its lease contract for the trucks which prompted it to look for a better product. The firm says the new 1.6 tonne electric powered three-wheelers are more compact and

said the LA County spokesperson.

“It is paramount that residents are educated fully about 1) potential risks from toxic releases from this facility; 2) current work that is being done to address toxic releases; 3) future work that needs to be completed; and 4) tools and approaches to addressing health concerns.

“This community has endured several decades of potential exposures to toxic emissions. The Department of Public Health, state regulators and the operator must co-ordinate outreach efforts, interventions and policies to best protect the health of the public, which is everybody’s top priority.”

The facility is less than 20 miles away from the Exide Technologies lead battery recycling site at Vernon, which was closed down three years ago after California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control fined it for alleged health and safety violations and pollution.

In August Exide hit back, citing evidence that proved some of the contamination could not have been from the plant but was instead from aviation fuel, paint and other sources. agile than the 1.8 tonne vehicles in use until then.

Aqua Metals engages Bristol Capital to promote business Lead battery recycling firm Aqua Metals announced on August 14 it had engaged the services of investor relations and capital markets advisory firm Bristol Capital.

The move aims to achieve greater visibility and more communication with investors in North America and Europe by putting on roadshows, putting out corporate materials and organizing other activities to get investors involved.

Bristol Capital is based in Canada, and specializes in servicing firms in the technology, renewables, energy, healthcare, aerospace, industrial and consumer industries across international markets.

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NEWS IN BRIEF NEWS IN BRIEF Washington DC sustainability discusses success of lead in the circular economy For the record, heads of the lead battery manufacturing and recycling industry shared its circular economy success with those attending the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Fifth Annual Sustainability and Circular Economy Summit on August 15.

Held in Washington DC, the two-day conference unites a cross-section of sustainability and circular economy professionals to educate one another on replicable, successful initiatives and benchmark strategies for impact through 2030 and beyond.

In the afternoon’s “Data for Good” session was discussion on the success of the lead battery industry’s circularity and commercial viability.

Its closed-loop infrastructure results in a 99.3% recycling rate, use of 80% recycled materials, and “Most Recycled Consumer Product” recognition by the EPA. During the session, Carole Mars, director of technical development and innovation for The Sustainability Consortium spoke on making the lead battery industry a circular economy model for other sectors.

“Lead batteries close the loop more effectively than any other product in the consumer goods space,” Mars said. “We’d like to leverage the lessons of this industry to help others reach the same type of performance for their end-of-life products.” TSC’s mission is to help make consumer products worldwide more sustainable.

The circularity of a lead battery has global impact, as the demand grows for sustainable energy storage in the renewable energy, automotive and digital technology sectors.

Wood Mackenzie’s Power & Renewables latest report projects that energy storage deployments will grow 13-fold over the next six years, concentrated in the US and China. One goal of the US lead battery industry is to ensure that environmental criteria of batteries be equal to, or greater than,

34 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

performance and cost criteria when evaluating battery options.

Also participating in the “Data for Good” session were executives from East Penn Manufacturing and RSR Technologies.

“Lead batteries are designed from the outset to ensure recyclability,” said East Penn Manufacturing CEO Chris Pruitt. “At our Berks County Pennsylvania facility, we recycle nearly 30,000 lead batteries every day, and the materials are reused to make new batteries over and over again.”

In the true spirit of a circular economy, new products are also created from the recycled materials.

From the recovered sulfuric acid, East Penn annually sells 25,000 tons of liquid fertilizer solution as raw material to fertilizer manufacturers.

Mark Drezdzon, vice president of research and development at RSR Technologies said performance advancements made in lead batteries over the past 20 years have not compromised the recyclability of the product.

RSR Technologies is a subsidiary of ECOBAT which is one of the world’s largest producers and recyclers of lead.

GNB becomes primary battery supplier to North American forklift truck chain Exide Technologies’ industrial battery division GNB Industrial Power has signed an agreement to supply lead batteries to the Raymond Corporation, a warehouse management company that has a network of centres all across the US and Canada, the firm announced on September 24.

GNB will supply its motive power batteries to the corporation’s authorized sales and service centers, which will then be able to provide GNB’s conventional flat-plate and tubular lead acid batteries for forklifts.

The batteries are made in GNB’s Kansas plant, where capacity has been increased with new manufacturing lines, the company says.

The Raymond Corporation sells manual and electric forklift trucks and conveyor systems for warehouse operations.

EUROBAT lobbies EU in campaign to promote lead batteries EUROBAT president Marc Zoellner has urged the EU to support all battery technologies in its Charge the Future campaign, which was launched on October 1.

“The battery industry employs more than 30,000 people in plants across the EU mostly working in advanced lead battery manufacturing and recycling,” said Zoellner, who is also CEO of German battery maker Hoppecke.

“Europe urgently needs the development of a real industrial battery strategy. To invest, businesses need clarity on future policy together with joined-up and consistent legislation.

“We already have a successful advanced lead battery value chain in the EU, batteries that are manufactured here and are fully recycled and re-used.

“We must grasp the opportunity to build on this foundation and strengthen our battery manufacturing capability, making Europe a world leader in green battery technologies.”

EUROBAT said that while batteries were set to ‘power the EU’s energy transformation’, research and manufacturing centres still needed to be developed with a range of technologies and co-operation all round.

“Our external communications team have already reached out to a selection of newly elected and current MEPs for whom we have prepared a welcome pack,” said Gert Meylemans, senior communications manager at EUROBAT. “This includes an overview of the future. We have not received a formal response, but the next step, as always, is to contact them to see if they received it with a view to presenting the association to them as soon as possible and convey our policy asks and manifesto to them.”

In the campaign, EUROBAT sets out five areas in which lead batteries play a vital part: these are innovation to advance the case for better products and delivery; industrial growth; clean mobility; clean energy; and the circular economy. The last three of which are increasingly seen as major themes running through all industries.

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NEWS — SOLAR+STORAGE

EDF signs agreement to supply energy and storage to huge new UK theme park Energy provider EDF Energy has signed a deal to supply a huge entertainment theme park in the UK with all the energy it will need from onsite renewable energy generation and battery storage, the firm announced on October 22.

No details of the battery storage were given, and the firms only mentioned solar panels as the source of power.

The multi-billion-pound London Resort, to be built

European countries pledge millions to World Bank energy initiatives The UK, France, the Netherlands and Denmark have pledged millions of dollars to World Bank initiatives on energy storage, solar power and clean cooking, the World Bank announced on September 25.

The UK has pledged the most — $250 million — to the Global Energy Storage Program, which is operated by the World Bank-approved Climate Investment Funds organization.

France and the Netherlands have each pledged $100 million to a Solar Risk Mitigation Initiative, which aims to help countries scale up off-grid and gridconnected solar energy programmes.

Denmark also announced it would donate $13 million to the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program’s ‘Clean Cooking Fund’ to help countries gain access to clean cooking.

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on a seven million square metre piece of land on the banks of the River Thames in the county of Kent, will include fairground rides, thousands of hotel rooms and dining facilities and will create thousands of jobs.

Under a 25-year contract, EDF will build, own and operate the energy generation and storage facilities for the park, which will be the largest entertainment district in Europe.

It will also contain EV charging points and is being touted by EDF as ‘one of the most sustainable major theme park destinations in the world’, and is believed to be a first for the tourism industry.

“This opportunity is unlike anything else currently being developed and this gives us scope to do something new with the

latest technologies available,” said Vincent de Rul, director of Energy Solutions at EDF Energy.

Construction of the theme park will being in 2021, and should open to visitors in 2024.

London Resort is being touted by EDF as ‘one of the most sustainable major theme park destinations in the world’.

Gold mining firms install solar plus storage at African mines Gold mining firm Nordgold said on October 22 it had formed a consortium to build a 13MW solar power plant with battery storage to provide 100% of its two gold mines in Burkina Faso.

The consortium is made up of Nordgold, which owns 90% of the Bissa and Bouly gold mines, independent power producer Total Eren and the Africa Energy Management Platform, a finance and development company that specializes in renewable and hybrid energy plants for mining and industrial projects across Africa.

Total Eren, a subsidiary of Eren Group, works in partnership with local leaders to develop electric power plants. Old production figures say the mines, which are 5km apart, produced 7,476 kt of rock in 2016, 3,000 kt more than in 2015.

Of that, just one or two grams of gold per tonne are likely to have been extracted, which makes gold mining one of the most extravagant industries in the world!

Adding the solar plant should result in

lower costs, says Nordogld CEO Nikolai Zelenski.

“By building this new solar plant, not only will we improve the efficiency of our mines by creating a more secure power supply at lower cost, but we are also helping to make our Burkina Faso mines far more sustainable, while minimizing our carbon footprint,” he said.

“The installation of a solar power plant at Bissa and Bouly, Nordgold’s key assets in terms of production, is in line with our strategy of implementing the best environmental standards across our operations”.

Nordgold is operating the mines under a 10-year contract which is due to end in 2027.

Nordgold is not the only gold mine in Africa to install a solar power plant to reduce operating costs.

B2Gold, a Canadian gold mining company, said it would complete a 30MW solar plus storage system at its mine in Mali for the third quarter of 2020.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 35

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NEWS — SOLAR+STORAGE

World’s largest lithium battery to be installed on Pacific island of Guam A 300MWh ‘solar-aftersunset’ project to be built on the US island territory of Guam will be the largest in the world says energy provider Engie, which has successfully bid for the contract.

The system is scheduled to go online in July 2022 to deliver more than 85GWh of dispatchable energy a year.

The Guam Power Authority, in the Western Pacific, approved Engie as a successful bidder to build two solar-plus-storage projects under a 20-year power purchase agreement, with

a view to formalizing the deal with a contract to the France-based firm.

The solar power will be stored for up to seven hours after sunset in a lithium battery from Engie, which says the battery will be twice the size of the largest in the world.

The world’s current largest battery is Tesla’s l00MW/129MWh lithium battery in South Australia, which is paired with the Hornsdale wind farm.

“We are proud to contribute to Guam Power Authority’s pioneering vision,” said Engie CEO Carlal-

berto Guglielminotti. “This is an iconic project which sets a paradigm shift for the zero-carbon transition: Engie EPS’s technological edge makes it now possible to provide solar power at

night cheaper than conventional generation.”

Engie is working with the GPA to obtain necessary approvals for the PPA and once granted, the installation can go ahead.

CalCom Energy launches $100m fund to help farmers build solar+storage projects Californian solar and energy service provider CalCom Energy has launched a $100 million Agriculture Energy Infrastructure Fund to build storage projects to benefit farming communities in the state, it said on September 25.

Developed in partnership with Symbiont Energy and the Live Oak Bank, the fund will enable farmers to build on-site solar and storage systems.

It specifically aims at agriculture companies and farmers hit by the recent wildfires in California, and who also suffer from a lack of grid resiliency and higher energy and water bills.

“Farmers have been under extreme pressure in California, with everything from utility bankruptcies to tariffs to natural and manmade disasters,” said Dylan Dupre, president and CEO of CalCom Energy.

“CalCom wholeheartedly supports our customers in the Central Valley, and with this fund we can of-

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fer very favourable financing options for customers who did not have access to clean energy in the past.”

David Williams, chief commercial officer for CalCom Energy said the fund would also allow it

to expand its project development work and for the first time, own the projects it was developing.

“Our speciality at CalCom now spans from origination and development through financing,

execution and asset management of distributed solar and storage projects,” he said.

CalCom was founded in 2012 to build solar and energy projects to offset rising electricity costs.

Sungrow-Samsung SDI sign up to supply solar+storage system in Massachusetts Inverter and energy storage supplier Sungrow on October 8 signed its latest contract to supply a fully integrated solar plus storage system to a project in Massachusetts.

The 12MW/32MWh ESS will be supplied under the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target Program (SMART), which was set up to support the development of solar energy in the state. This is a tariff-based incentive paid directly by the utility company to the system owner following approvals.

It will be deployed across five distribution grid-

connected sites and should be commissioned in the second quarter of 2020.

Sungrow’s ST4200KWh-2000 storage system uses lithium-ion batteries

by Samsung SDI, as well as an energy management system, local controller and HVAC in a 40 foot container that allows onsite installation and a unified control capability.

It will be operated by the US energy firm Stem, which is owned by private equity firm Syncarpha Capital, based in New York.

“We felt strongly about Sungrow Samsung SDI’s

product offering, especially with the fully integrated concept, which really helped us reduce the LCOE and operational costs,” said John Carrington, CEO of Stem.

“As a technical leader in power conversion, Sungrow offers innovative solar-plus storage solutions that are future-focused. We have already completed prestigious projects in the US and across the globe, connecting renewables to the grid to bring sustainable and reliable power to people,” said Hank Wang, president of Sungrow Americas.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 37

NEWS — SOLAR+STORAGE

California approves the state’s largest battery installation

California has approved its largest 300MW/1,200MWh battery installation, in the Californian desert of Mojave, which was approved on September 10 by the Los Angeles Department of Water

and Power.

Working with the local utility Glendale Water and Power and the Southern California Public Power Authority, the LADWP board approved the BESS to be in-

stalled on a 25-year contract alongside a 400MW solar PV plant at solar company 8 Minute Solar Energy’s Eland Solar and Storage Center.

The plant should begin commercial operations in December 2023, the LADWP said.

8 Minute Solar Energy was selected in July by the Moapa Band of Paiutes and NV Energy in Nevada to develop what was then touted as the largest solar-plusstorage project in Nevada, ‘and one of the largest in the world’.

That was for a 300MW solar array with 540MWh of lithium batteries to store

Exide announces solar project to power Spanish recycling factory Exide Technologies, the lead battery maker and recycler, announced on October 11 it would install 4,000 solar panels to power its factory in San Esteban

de Gormaz, Spain.

The project has been agreed with energy group EDP, which will develop and deliver the plant as a turnkey operation, supply-

ing and assembling all parts and equipment. It will be delivered over 15 years and follows a similar partnership with EDP in Portugal, which was announced ear-

Famous African game park Kruger fitted with battery-backed microgrid One of Africa’s best known game parks has been installed with a batterybacked solar microgrid, South African energy supply firm Dhybrid and solar company Blockpower announced on October 1.

The Universal Power Platform, comprising three solar plants with 895 PV modules and a 1MWh Samsung SDI lithium battery, has been installed at the South African Kruger National Park’s Cheetah Plains Lodge.

A diesel generator is also integrated into the microgrid, but will only be fired up during periods when there is less sunshine.

The battery and inverter are housed in an air-conditioned ocean container.

“Available peak power capacity for the lodge has been increased by four times to 250kW since it switched over to

38 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

the microgrid from its previous energy supplier, ESKOM,” said Cheetah Plains owner Japie van Niekerk.

The system continuously monitors all the important grid parameters and facilitates automated operation, controlling connected energy generators and storage to maximize the use of renewable energy, the firm said.

“Unlike traditional independent microgrids, where either the diesel generator or the solar installation can be run at a given time, the UPP can control different energy generators simultaneously,” the company said.

“This makes the entire system noticeably more efficient, meaning that the diesel generator only needs to be switched on when energy consumption is unusually high or in periods of bad weather.”

the energy.

The Mojave Desert project almost doubles that storage capacity.

“Renewable generation, such as solar and wind, is heavily weather dependent and will vary over time, often making it difficult to schedule and count on with a high level of certainty,” the LAPWP said.

“New technologies, including energy storage, advanced inverter functions and enhanced monitoring and controls, potentially have the capability to bridge the gap between variable renewable and conventional generation.” lier this year.

The PV plant should generate 1.3 MWp of power and will enable Exide to draw much of its annual power needs from solar, reducing its CO2 emissions, the company said.

“Energy-intensive industries will have to rely increasingly on sustainable sources like solar, and our new plant shows the scale of what is possible,” said Stefan Stübing, president of Exide EMEA. “Not only will it reduce our carbon emissions, highlighting our commitment to sustainability, it will also improve our operating efficiency and performance.”

Javier Sáenz de Jubera, commercial general director of EDP España, said the contract signified the possibilities of self-consumption as one of the biggest challenges the energy sector was facing.

“Solar power is already a solution for companies and will continue to be so in the future, as it offers many advantages, increasing competitiveness, reducing the power bill and optimizing energy efficiency,” he said.

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NEWS — SOLAR+STORAGE

Utah utility reveals largest battery demand response system in the US US utility Rocky Mountain Power revealed what it says is the largest residential battery demand response solution in the US on August 28, a solar-powered storage system using batteries by Sonnen.

The Wasatch Group property management company, Rocky Mountain Power, solar company Auric Energy and Sonnen have joined forces to install and operate the virtual power plant at the Soleil Lofts apartment community in Herriman, Utah.

The project will use more than 600 individual Son-

nen ecoLinx batteries with 12.6MW of storage capacity to provide emergency back-up power, and peak energy use management.

“The combination of solar and long lasting, safe,

intelligent energy storage managed by the local utility is an essential component to the clean energy grid of the future,” said Sonnen chairman and CEO Blake Richetta.

Syncarpha and ENGIE in unique project financing arrangement Energy giant ENGIE Storage is to supply and operate a 19MW/38MWh combined solar-plus-storage portfolio comprising six sites in Massachusetts, the firm announced on July 30.

The portfolio will be operated by Syncarpha Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, and it will be the first utility-scale solar-plus-storage offering using ENGIE’s new integrated product for wholesale market participation.

It will provide Syncarpha with the turnkey system for 20 years and under a market participation agreement, each of the six sites will pay fees in exchange for the rights to operate the solar-plus-storage system in the ISO-NE wholesale capacity, reserves and frequency regulation markets.

“This unique arrangement delivers substantial added contracted revenue for the projects while implementing ENGIE Storage’s market-leading energy storage sales platform for the long-term benefit of

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each of the six combined solar and storage sites,” the company said.

“Syncarpha selected ENGIE Storage for the portfolio due to ENGIE’s sophisticated and integrated offer, leading software,

operational experience, and bankability,” said Cliff Chapman, CEO of Syncarpha. “Working with ENGIE creates incremental value for these assets in addition to the SMART program and meets the finan-

“The solar industry should find inspiration in this extraordinary project, as it provides a blueprint for the future of grid-optimized battery storage.”

The Soleil Lofts apartment complex is not yet inhabited — residents will begin to move in from this month, and the final building should be completed by December 2020.

Once that happens, the complex will be the largest fully installed, operational residential battery demand response solution in the US, the conglomerate says. cial and risk requirements of tax equity investors and lenders.”

ENGIE Storage CEO Christopher Tilley said: “This announcement will be the first of many as ENGIE Storage is executing more than 100MWh of solar and storage contracts with market participation agreements for the SMART program.”

GE Renewable Energy to integrate energy storage into 200MW solar river project The Solar River Project and GE Renewable Energy announced on September 19 that GE has been selected for the supply and integration of one of the largest gridscale battery technology hybrid deployments to be installed for the project in South Australia.

The energy storage system, called the Reservoir, will be coupled to a 200MW photovoltaic generation plant.

GE will install a 100MW/300MWh storage system, which could transfer up to 400MWh of electricity per day, making it, the firm says, one of the largest batteries in the southern hemisphere.

The project will be located in South Australia’s mid-north, halfway between Burra and Morgan, and aims to supply energy to power 90,000 South Australian homes.

Jason May, Solar River Project CEO,

said: “The award of the battery to General Electric is another major milestone for the project.”

The South Australia Electricity Grid has one of the peakiest loads in the world, and the battery energy storage system can allow the plant to deliver firm generation and assist in smoothing peaks, contributing to a more stable network for years to come, the firms said.

The storage system is designed to capture the energy produced by the solar sources, for use in times of power demand, which can increase the availability of the plant and enable optimal use of the solar PVs. The Solar River Project received Crown Development Approval in June 2018, and the project managers reckon that the first electricity should be generated in early 2021.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 39

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PRODUCT NEWS

Bitrode releases new high voltage tester Bitrode Corporation, the international battery equipment testing firm, released its new FTF-HV series laboratory tester in early September. This high voltage test system is capable of 1500V and 600 amps per channel with a maximum

power capability of 450kW. Craig Brunk, vice president for sales and marketing says the new equipment would fit an expanding sector of the energy storage market, “The journey to create these high voltage testers has

not been an easy one,” he said. “But we now have two fully tested units in our R&D testing lab that we would proudly present to any customer wishing to come to St Louis to see them in action.”

These fully regenerative

powered units are 92% efficient, have 0.05% current accuracy and have 30 mSec rise time (10% to 90%) with zero overshoot.

Operando neutron radiography used

on lead batteries for first time

A group of scientists from Spain, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Turkey have used operando neutron radiography on lead acid battery function for the first time.

The study was published in the Journal of Power Sources on October 31.

The scientists, who come from a range of institutions including the University of New South Wales in Australia and the University of the Country of Basque in Spain, say that although the technique has been used on lithium batteries, their research is the first to apply neutron imaging techniques to understand the working processes of

lead acid batteries.

“This work highlights the potential of neutron imaging for tracking battery function and outlines opportunities for further development,” says the report – Monitoring Lead-acid Battery Function Using Operando Neutron Radiography.

Several other techniques can monitor batteries in situ, however they can be intrusive, for instance inserting sensors into the battery cell, which can result in the cell changing its behaviour, the scientists say.

While they acknowledge four non-intrusive techniques — ultrasound, holographic laser inter-

ferometry, magnetic field measurements and synchrotron X-ray radiography and tomography, there are differences with their technique, they say.

“One of the most important differences between neutrons and X-ray radiation (synchrotron) is that neutrons collect information of the nucleus of the atoms, and X-ray radiation of the electronic shell of the atoms,” said researcher Joxemi Campillo Robles, in the Applied Physics department at the University of the Basque Country.

“The main advantage of neutrons with respect to Xray radiation is their greater penetration depth. High

East Penn develops battery for higher temperature truck applications Lead acid battery manufacturer East Penn has developed a battery for commercial trucks that uses thermal shielding technology to extend battery life in a variety of climates and higher temperatures, the firm announced on September 13.

The firm’s Fahrenheit battery range has been designed to cope with higher temperatures of

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140°F (60°C) resulting from the demands placed on batteries today.

The new batteries are encased in a thermally resistant container that resists high heat AGM performance, and inside the box there is a heat reduction catalyst to prevent thermal runaway.

“More than three quarters of US freight is moved via commercial trucks,” the firm said. “Extended

battery life means fleets can operate smoother and run longer. Mechanics and drivers will also experience fewer unexpected repairs and emergency servicing,” says the firm.

“There are more demands, changes and pressures than ever before.

Products need to last, especially batteries, because trucks need to run and more downtime ruins everything.”

energy X-rays can penetrate only 1-2mm in lead, and while it seems to be a very promising technique, it is limited to analyzing thin lead acid battery plates.

Instead, neutrons can pass easily through lead, and obtain information from the inner region of the plates.”

The researchers made new casings with materials better suited for allowing the neutrons to be transmitted, and the resulting imaging data clearly imaged electrodes, separators, electrolyte and case components, even picking up manufacturing faults.

“We observed the evolution of gas in the electrolyte/electrode surface as well,” the study said.

Robles said the next study would look at how the electrochemical processes in electrodes can be correlated with changes seen in neutron transmittance.

“We have also performed neutron tomography measurements to check the evolution of the inner structure of the battery,” he said.

The report says that while the basic principles of lead acid battery operation have not changed, ‘its recyclability and innovations in the cell construction have kept the technology pertinent and enhanced its usefulness for new applications’.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 41

w o r ld

w id e

PRODUCT NEWS

Wirtz unveils its ‘plug and play’ system for smaller recyclers Wirtz Manufacturing unveiled a ‘complete plug and play’ recycling system at the International Secondary Lead Conference in Bali on September 2.

Battery Recycling Systems, one of the Wirtz group of companies, has developed an RTR (Ready To Run) series of equipment for recycling batteries, which the company says simply arrives on site in one box, can be assembled in less than a day and offers four product separation streams — metallic lead, paste, separators and polypropylene.

The system can recycle from one to 24 tonnes of lead batteries a day, and is ideal for small recyclers, said vice president for sales and marketing Doug Lambert.

Director of engineering Robert Wirtz said the system also included a robotic ingot stacking unit, air filtration systems and after filters — “all operated from a single control panel,” he said.

“It cuts cost, time and resources and we give every installation full global support,” Wirtz said.

Battery Recycling Systems, which makes all the

separate components of a recycling system — such as bag house air filtration systems, breaking and separation systems, cascade refin-

ing systems, effluent treatment plants and rotary furnaces — has more than 70 installations worldwide, Wirtz said.

Hoppecke launches active carbon battery range for forklfts

er maintenance intervals and lower operating costs,” he said. “As logistics operations contend with the challenges of boosting productivity while maximizing resources to keep costs low, Hoppecke’s aim is to make their budgets work harder with energy-efficient motive power batteries that deliver day in, day out.

“The new range represents the cutting edge of our vented lead-acid technology and is a universal, high quality, low-cost solution designed to keep a wide range of equipment operating at peak performance.”

The launch comes a year after Hoppecke Industrial Batteries won a £1 million ($1.3 million) contract to supply lead batteries to forklift truck distributor Briggs Equipment. The deal involved Hoppecke’s trak air range, a precursor to the latest launch.

The trak uplift batteries are also suitable for utility vehicles, agricultural and construction machinery, lifting platforms, cleaning machines and cold storage equipment, the company said.

German industrial battery maker Hoppecke launched a battery range on August 9 which, it says, combines active carbon and other new features to make them ideal for busy single shift forklift operations.

The batteries, called ‘trak uplift’, have been designed for industrial applications such as forklift trucks, which are in daily use and need robust power support for extreme mechanical

stresses and strains.

The active carbon promotes higher current discharge characteristics, improved fast charging capabilities and increased service life for cyclic applications, the company said.

Trak uplift batteries all contain a 3D enhanced electrode with a protective shell separator to prevent mossing — deposits of free active materials accumulating on the negative elec-

trode.

They also have a pole feed-through, a labyrinth system developed to cope with the demands of industrial forklifts.

Stuart Browne, operations director, sales and service at Hoppecke, said the batteries had reduced maintenance requirements and compared with conventional lead batteries, longer intervals between top-ups.

“This translates into long-

NEC to develop energy storage systems with cells from Ambri NEC Energy Solutions and Ambri announced in mid-September they had signed a joint development agreement in which NEC will design and develop an energy storage system based on Ambri’s liquid metal battery technology.

The aim is to build systems using Ambri’s cells that will suit applications

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with durations of four hours or more, and where a daily full depth of discharge cycling is expected.

“These systems will be particularly well suited for shifting large amounts of renewable energy and grid-system peak shaving,” says a NEC official.

NEC says it will employ its AEROS energy storage operating system

and controls to optimize system performance of the Ambri-based energy storage systems for NEC customers that could include utilities, independent power producers and project developers.

The development program includes delivery of Ambri cells to NEC in the fourth quarter of 2019

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 43

COVER STORY: SEPARATORS

Batteries International spoke to the leading separator manufacturers about what they thought were the outstanding advances that their firms were making…

44 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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COVER STORY: SEPARATORS

…The progress made has been outstanding.

Turning R&D separator technology into products for the future industry Commercial advantage is the thinking behind almost all technological advances — and none less so than in the fiercely competitive battery industry. So what are the issues facing modern battery producers and what obstacles have to be overcome?

All the major separator manufacturers are engaged in solving some or all of the problems of increasing charge acceptance, preventing electrolyte stratification, improving round trip cycle efficiency, preventing PCL and lowering water loss.

The fundamental methods used to address these issues, centre around modifying the separator design to prevent stratification, incorporating

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additives which improve the conductivity of the active material, using other additives which help to raise the H2 overvoltage, changing the basic materials of construction to reduce separator resistance and aid battery manufacture, to name but a few.

Daramic

Daramic has reduced separator resistance by increasing the material

porosity. The less material per m2 the lower the resistance to ion flow.

They have increased their pore size from under 60 microns to almost 65 microns but have also increased the tortuosity to prevent internal short circuits.

By reducing separator resistance, Daramic has shown that this can significantly increase the cold crank performance. The backweb thickness

By reducing separator resistance, Daramic has shown that this can significantly increase the cold crank performance Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 45

COVER STORY: SEPARATORS

Figure 1. Daramic’s tri-partite separator solution of carbon, Rip Tide and Negative access profile toincrease cycle life.

and rib pitch have a significant impact on the separator resistance and therefore the battery internal resistance.

Daramic claims that a change from 4 mm rib pitch to a serrated design can increase the U10 voltage by 0.15V. This is a significant improvement for SLI cold start ability.

Daramic has also taken the additive approach to reduce the total IR of the battery and introduced a thin carbon film of 10 to 50 microns thickness, on the negative side of a separator. They claim that a significant improvement in DCA can be obtained with only a slight increase in water loss.

In fact, their laboratory results show that a combination of using their riptide design (which reduces electrolyte stratification) and the increased acid access to the negative from the vertical ribs on the NAM side results in an improvement of several hundred per cent in both DCA and cycle life compared with standard separators (Figure 1).

Use of additives which include ’lignins, rubber compounds and various organics’ has led Daramic to claim that the performance of its Duralife PE separator can match that of rubber.

Tests by Daramic have shown that overcharge and grid corrosion are also reduced.

spheres is heated in an enclosed mould to obtain the desired separator form factors to make a variety of shapes, backwebs and rib designs.

These separators provide a more porous structure than a standard PE separator. This gives a very low resistivity of around 1100 mΩ-cms, substantially less than their standard PE separator.

In the same vein they have also de-

vised their Solvent-Cast PE films. This method can produce a flexible strip separator. This is a continuous manufacturing process which relies on solvent dissolution of a polymer which is then cast as a solution onto a substrate.

The process enables ribs to be formed on both sides (Figure 2). This produces a separator with an electrical resistivity of around 2500 mΩ-cm.

If you think that the separator resistance is trivial compared to the battery IR, and is not worth considering, then think again. ENTEK estimates that a separator can contribute as much as 10% to the battery’s internal resistance at low temperatures of around -18°C. It is this reliance of the cold cranking ability on battery internal resistance which is at the heart of all SLI battery technology. Even with existing PE separators they have found that by varying the SiO2/PE ratio of the separator components, the pore volume can be increased from less than 60% to around 80%, halving the separator resistivity from 4000 to 2000 mΩ-cm.

On paper this would result in a 5% improvement in CCA results for most SLI battery designs. This is without any design or modification efforts by the battery manufacturer.

ENTEK’s silica monoliths — separators cast from a mixture of silica and dry unexpanded ‘Expancel’ mini-spheres — are as radical as it gets

ENTEK

When it comes to pushing the boundaries of new materials, ENTEK must surely be a front runner. Their silica monoliths — separators cast from a mixture of silica and dry unexpanded ‘Expancel’ mini-spheres — are as radical as it gets.

This mixture of silica and mini

46 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

Figure 2. ENTEK’s solvent-cast separators

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COVER STORY: SEPARATORS Microporous

It is well known that rubber separators have a beneficial effect in suppressing antimony poisoning (the lowering of the H2 overpotential on lead by transferring antimony to the negative plate). In figure 3 Microporous shows this effect of Sb transmission by comparing the charge discharge efficiency of rubber separators compared with non-rubber.

Microporous claims a significant improvement charge efficiency for rubber separators compared to that of a PE separator can be achieved. In trials using a golf car battery, Microporous demonstrated that water loss and cycle life are improved by a factor of two.

The Achilles heel of rubber separators, however, has been their brittleness. This has limited their use in modern manufacturing techniques and designs which require an envelope construction of the separator to give side and bottom short circuit protection to battery plates.

To overcome this Microporous use electron beam polymerization to cross-link EDPM and natural rubber to produce a flexible rubber battery separator called Flex-sil which eradicates the majority of the brittleness problem.

This brand however, is not flexible enough to fold nor is it weldable. To overcome this, they have developed a composite separator called Cellforce, made from a combination of PE and rubber to give sufficient flexibility and weldability to automate production of pocket separators. With this, they claim a unique solution for extending the life of traction batteries which use antimony as the grid hardening agent.

In Figure 4, Microporous shows the superior cycle life test results for their Cellforce versus standard PE separators.

battery designs. This is a result of deep discharge and insufficient recharge cycle profiles often met in modern applications.

To address this, Hollingsworth and Vose has developed StratiGuard, a glass mat that reduces stratification and also improves filling capability.

Normally one would expect that the higher the stratification resistance of the mat, the more difficult it is to acid fill. H&V over decades of research and careful selection of fibre

material have been able to meet both criteria in a single product. This is of particular interest to manufacturers of tall and frequently cycled batteries.

However, battery cycle life is dependent on factors other than stratification which are equally important.

One factor is the mechanical properties of AGM fibres, and their consistency which play a significant role in maintaining internal battery compression during service life.

Figure 3. Microporous separator effect of antimony suppression on charge/ discharge efficiency

Microporous uses electron beam polymerization to produce a flexible rubber battery separator called Flex-sil which eradicates the majority of the brittleness problem Hollingsworth and Vose

It still comes as a surprise to many people that stratification is a major cause of failure in lead acid AGM

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Figure 4. Comparison of end of charge voltage versus cycle number for Microporous Cellforce against standard separators

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 49

COVER STORY: SEPARATORS This compression is important in keeping pressure against the active material which ensures good AM/ grid contact to minimise resistance and also helps to prevent AM shedding. See figure 5.

To ensure full control over their fibre characteristics, Hollingsworth and Vose produces their own fibres.

As a result of this, they have developed and produced a mat that is able to maintain sufficient strength and flexibility to provide high plate pressure over the cycle life of an AGM battery.

opment, and therefore future success of PbA chemistry, comes from the separator industry. From the reduction of hydrogen gas evolution to the minimizing of stratification from PSoC conditions, the humble separator is responsible for far more than

just stopping an internal short circuit between battery plates.

It can in fact be a significant part of lead acid’s continuing improvement and future role in the rapidly changing world of electrochemical energy storage.

Hollingsworth and Vose has developed StratiGuard, a glass mat that reduces stratification and also improves filling capability.

Bernard Dumas

In a similar vein, Dumas has a separator material that combines polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and glass fibres into an AGM mat (Ecomat).

This gives higher mechanical properties and reduces electrolyte stratification.

This has a beneficial effect on tensile strength (compression) and electrolyte stratification speed for different fibre compositions and specific fibre area (SSA). This mat provides reinforcement, elongation and a high pore size but still provides substantial pressure against the battery plates to retain AM. Dumas claims that their new material has clear superiority for most of the mechanical properties required from a glass mat, as well as resistance to electrolyte stratification.

The firm also produces a glass pasting paper which is added between pasting and before flash drying of the plates (Figure 6). This also aids in the reduction of stratification by providing better wicking of the dilute acid from the bottom to the top of the battery plate.

It has long been recognized that the lead acid battery is partially dependant for its continuous improvement on the R&D of its suppliers.

A major contribution to this devel-

Dumas has a separator material that combines polyethylene terephthalate and glass fibres into an AGM mat (Ecomat). This gives higher mechanical properties and reduces electrolyte stratification 50 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

Figure 5. Hollingsworth and Vose — compression tests vs competitor

Figure 6: Ecomat design mix for AGM mat

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Higher Porosity Lower Electrical Resistance Higher Puncture Resistance Durable Oxidation Resistance New Generation of PE Separator -Ultra Porosity

COVER STORY: SEPARATORS The race to build better separators has never been so intense. But, to understand why, one must first examine the basics of separators’ role and function in different battery configurations.

Why separators are critical to lead batteries’ future In the current anti-plastic climate, one could be forgiven for having some misgivings about the contents of a lead acid battery.

The separators of modern flooded and gelled electrolyte batteries are mostly plastic based, primarily due to their acid resistance and ability to provide a porous yet effective barrier between the positive and negative plates.

The unique properties required for lead acid battery separators mean that, as yet, they are mostly of plastic construction. Even the cellulosic designs contain phenolic resins as stiffeners and are limited in their applications and battery manufacturing ability.

To get a good understanding of the reasons for the current choice of materials and designs of lead acid battery separators it is necessary to ask: what is the function of a separator and how is that changing?

Originally separators were simply a barrier between the positive and negative plate which had the dual purpose of preventing them touching while also allowing the reactive ions in the electrolyte to be transferred between anode and cathode. The first battery from Alessandro Volta using the Voltaic pile construction had copper and zinc as the electrodes and a cloth or paper separator soaked in electrolyte (salt water).

The higher the stack the higher the voltage. Figure 1 shows the construction of an early Voltaic pile, clearly impractical and even more clearly non-commercial.

The first rechargeable battery by Gaston Planté in 1869 had no separators, instead lead sheets were spirally wound with a rubber strip spacer between them. As the design progressed via Camille Faure’s invention of the battery plate, consisting of an active mass and a grid, it became necessary to devise a suitable separator material

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that was the same shape as the plate which could easily be placed between the electrodes.

It was the break-through that would make the battery a basic building block of the modern world — finally the battery was capable of mass production.

Lead acid batteries, using cedar wood slices with ribs, cut to size, were mass produced in the early part of the 20th century. To get lower resistance and controllable thickness, wood pulp was later used to produce cellulosic separators with lower acid displacement and good tortuosity to prevent dendrite growth and internal shorting.

Following on from this synthetic separator was the first attempt at a plastic version. This used very small particles of PVC which were sintered together to give porosity and some tortuosity to prevent dendrite growth from plate to plate creating a short circuit.

Early versions however, had large pore sizes and were not completely successful in preventing internal shorts. They were also brittle, nonweldable, and batteries using them had a noticeably shorter life than their cellulosic counterparts.

This was the beginning of the use of the plastic separator in batteries.

With lead acid it was noticeable that there was a drop in the gassing voltage when using PVC. It was eventually traced to the cellulose in the wood which helped maintain a higher gas evolution voltage. This was one of the first additives to be used in the battery active material and was an unforeseen consequence of the shift away from

the more expensive cellulosic material.

Because of the low cost and production benefits of plastic separators, development of PVC and other materials continued through the 20th century and it was in 1969 that the polyethylene separator was invented by US firm WR Grace based on membrane technology for water filtration.

PE had several advantages: it had a smaller pore size to prevent dendrite growth; it was also weldable and flexible. This gave better manufacturing opportunities, and separators that could be provided on a roll then cut to size and welded to form a pocket had distinct advantages for prevention of side and bottom shorts.

There was also the financial benefit of lower inventory costs due to not having to stock different sizes nor cut different sized separators to size from a single sheet with consequent wastage.

In 2019 the choice of materials for flooded battery separators is still between cellulose/ resin, rubber, PVC and PE. With the advent of VRLA, AGM batteries we now have a compressible glass mat which absorbs acid into the material to provide the starved electrolyte conditions for gas recombination.

The gelled electrolyte VRLA version mostly uses cellulosic but can also be manufactured with PVC or PE separators. The emphasis for development for all three types of separator has gradually changed over the last few decades in accordance with market demands.

The low maintenance and maintenance free car starter batteries require low water loss and high cold cranking amps. Whereas a lower acid displacement and side short protection in traction batteries is required for capacity and cycle life.

More recently, the tackling of acid stratification and plate sulfation resulting from PSoC conditions is another requirement. Now, since the advent of start-stop xEV cars, charge acceptance of the lead acid battery has to be radically improved.

Separator companies are working on the dual benefit of lowering separator resistance as well as providing carbon for the negative plate active mass Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 53

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COVER STORY: SEPARATORS Things have definitely moved on since the early days of just keeping the plates apart to prevent a short circuit.

Whilst the materials of construction can be very different, the basic design and principles of operation are the same.

The shape of separators (for flooded cells at least) has common features: a backweb which is as thin as possible and mini ribs on the negative side and taller main ribs on the positive side to allow acid access to the plates. The ribs can be vertical, diagonal or wavy.

The diagonal and wavy varieties are generally used for tubular plate batteries in order to ensure a uniform contact with the vertical spines of the positive plate. Figure 2 gives a general view of the separator profile and a plan view of the variants mentioned.

The backweb is important from several general considerations: acid displacement which is mostly determined by the material porosity, electrical resistance which is dependent on the thickness, the porosity and tortuosity of the backweb material and lastly the oxidation and puncture resistance.

The two basic requirements for a separator that have not changed are: low electrical resistance and low acid displacement.

The main problem faced by battery manufacturers is that the most widely used method for improving charge acceptance is the addition of some form of carbon into the active mass.

It has unfortunately been found that this measure, will, under standard overcharge testing, increase water loss.

The reasons for this and the contrary findings under real world conditions are still a matter for debate. However, it is important to increase the charge acceptance of lead acid batteries.

Carbon additives in the battery AM reduce the internal resistance of the battery. This lower resistance has the effect of increasing the current that flows at a particular voltage (Ohms Law), thereby getting more ampere hours back into a battery in a given charge time.

Separator companies are working on the dual benefit of lowering separator resistance as well as providing carbon for the negative plate active mass.

The addition of carbon and the associated problem of water loss is linked to the lowering of the H2 overvoltage on lead. This can be due to a number of factors, including metallic impurities in the carbon additive, or in fact, in the separator material itself.

This is detrimental as it impacts on

56 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

round trip energy efficiency, maintenance costs and cycle life. PVC and PE separators do not have any effect on the hydrogen overvoltage. For this reason, there are solutions which centre around using the separator as a carrier for additives that can lower H2 evolution at the negative plate, both with and without lead antimony grids.

Rubber and cellulosic materials both contain organics which help to elevate the hydrogen overvoltage and reduce the detrimental and parasitic reactions of water electrolysis and hydrogen gas production.

We also have the relatively modern phenomenon of premature capacity loss (PCL) which is associated with PSoC cycling, as is stratification. With

applications where batteries are never fully recharged, particularly with low constant voltage arrangements, the electrolyte is never stirred.

This means there is no mixing of the dense acid which is produced at the plate interface on charge according to the double sulphate reaction: PbSO4 + H2O = PbO2 + Pb + H2SO4 The dense acid produced from charging (H2SO4) sinks to the bottom of the battery, leaving the water rich, weaker electrolyte as the main environment for the plates. The plates being immersed in a weak acid leads to larger, less reactive crystals of PbSO4 being produced on discharge during a

WHY AND HOW THEY WORK Electrical resistance of the separator is a measure of its ability to transfer ions from one electrode to the other. This has a direct effect on the performance of the battery by increasing the internal resistance of the cells. The major contributor to separator resistance is the backweb and, to a lesser extent, the resistance of the ribs.

The resistance of the separator can be expressed as:

Rsep = Rel*T2/p-1

Where: Rsep = separator resistance (Ω cm) Rel = electrolyte resistance (Ω cm) T = tortuosity (defined as 1/pore diameter) P = porosity Acid displacement is important because we also have to consider the capacity of a battery. This is partly dependent on the volume of acid in the battery cell. Separators take up space that could be occupied by the battery electrolyte and, depending on the battery

Application

Conditions

Stop/start

Frequent discharges, limited recharge time, constant charge water loss, PSoC

xEV

Regenerative braking charge

Renewable energy

Deep discharge, energy efficient and fast recharge, low gassing on charge

Telecoms

Deep discharge, PSoC conditions

Diesel-hybrid generators

Daily deep discharge, energy efficient and fast recharge, low gassing on charge

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COVER STORY: SEPARATORS cyclic operation.

The larger crystal means a lower surface area for the active mass which is therefore less reactive and requires more energy to convert back to the charged constituents (PbO2 + Pb).

Continued cycling eventually leads to a situation of both stratification and a sulphated battery.

With flooded designs, there are mechanical factors which influence cycle life. Side and bottom shorts caused by active material shedding can reduce battery performance and shorten its life.

PE separators facilitate automatic processes which fold the strip then weld the edges to enable pocket or sleeve designs to isolate the positive

design could limit the capacity of a battery.

The amount of acid displaced is determined by the volume of the solid fraction of the separator. This is calculated from:

D = (Vb + Vr) (1-P) Where: Vb = volume of backweb Vr = volume of ribs P = porosity The basic properties common to all varieties of flooded separators can

and negative plates. This has virtually eliminated short circuit failure in many applications.

Also important for all manufacturers is the tortuosity of the separator pores to prevent dendrite growth or trapped metallic particles from providing a conducting path between the plates.

The last, but by no means insignificant point concerns battery manufacturing. The more automated, consistent and reliable the processes, the better and more cost effective the battery. Again, the advent of flexible and weldable PE separators supplied in roll form has enabled much higher throughputs with machine, rather than human consistency.

be listed as: • Low acid solubility • Good oxidation resistance • Low electrical resistance • Low acid displacement • High tensile strength • Good flexibility • High porosity • Good wettability • Low level of leachable impurities.

These features will hold irrespective of the battery application. However, as markets and specific conditions under which batteries operate are chang-

Early versions of rubber separators were brittle and easily damaged in the battery assembly process. Undetectable microcracks in the backweb were created by rapid flicking of large traction sheets into hand burning assembly jigs. These cracks were a source of high warranty returns for many battery manufacturers in the 1970s and 80s.

While the analysis of lead acid battery characteristics and the contributions from the separator manufacturers given above is not exhaustive, it is fairly clear that the R&D and trials carried out by these companies, were and are, a major factor in the improvement of the lead acid battery and its competitiveness.

ing, there are now other factors which need to be considered. The new applications and their specific operating conditions are outlined in the table below.

The batteries used in these new applications have some similar requirements. These are: • higher charge acceptance to recharge in shorter periods.

• Better overall energy efficiency from discharge to recharge.

• Higher H2 overvoltage on lead to minimize water loss.

Requirements

Separator properties

High charge acceptance, anti-stratification technology, low water loss, EFB design

Low electrical resistance, Low level of impurities, Anti-stratification design H2 evolution suppression

High charge acceptance, anti-stratification technology, low water loss

Low electrical resistance, Low level of impurities, Anti-stratification design H2 evolution suppression

High charge acceptance, anti-stratification technology, low water loss

Low electrical resistance, Low level of impurities, Anti-stratification design

High charge acceptance, low water loss, good round trip energy efficiency, no electrolyte stratification

Low electrical resistance, Low level of impurities, H2 evolution suppression, AGM design, long cycle life

High charge acceptance, anti-stratification technology, low water loss, good round trip cycle efficiency, long cycle life

Low electrical resistance, Low level of impurities, H2 evolution suppression, oxidation resistance, side and bottom welds.

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Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 57

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC 18th Asian Battery Conference • Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia • September 3-6 2019

18ABC ends with talk of being ‘the best ever’ 18ABC proved to be the biggest Asian Battery Conference ever with around 1,000 delegates attending the conference and which came immediately after the Sixth International Secondary Lead Conference (6ISLC).

More than 55 papers were presented — for fuller details see this magazine’s run down of both events later in this issue — and 150 exhibitors set out stalls at the conference centre. This was the largest Asia lead conference to date, in the entire history of the 30 years that the show has been running.

For the first time, a charity event which was to run over the three days — the One Minute Giveback, sponsored by Sorfin Yoshimura, encouraged delegates to support three Bali-based charities by either handing over cash or spending a few minutes packing backpacks for school children and people in need of medical supplies.

And in another first, there were four female chairs — Microporous’s Claudia Lorenzini, O M Impianti’s Melissa Maggioni, Ola Hekselman from Imperial College London and Paolina Atanassova, from Cabot Corporation. This amounted to a third of all speakers at the 18ABC, something conference chair Mark Stevenson said would become a minimum.

“I really want to thank them for their participation — they were great, and we want more of them,” he said.

“I enjoyed this conference more than any I have been to,” said one of the conference speakers. “This is despite the nervous edge of the speakers and delegates due to the oft-forecasted decline of PbA.” “There are so many exhibitors here, and so many top quality presentations,” said another delegate. “I think this conference has had more than any previous one — it feels as if it’s the biggest yet.”

The conference has come a long way since its beginnings in 1986, when the Singapore-based organization ZALAS (Zinc and Lead Asian Services) decided to promote the use of zinc and lead by technically supporting and educating customers.

It was sponsored by major primary

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lead and zinc companies from Australia and Pacific Rim countries.

Conference chair Mark Stevenson said the differences between then and now were manifold — from the amount of lead consumed globally per year then (5.5 million tonnes, with 65% entering the battery sector) to now (more than 13 million tonnes, 85% in the battery market), to the range and type of batteries produced.

“I believe we’ve got the right mix of presentations this year — there was a balance between the practical, the theoretical and the commercial and we didn’t lose sight of the broader industry view,” he said.

“I know that a lot of conferences like to pick an overarching theme and revolve things around that. I prefer to ensure we cover many topics and allow speakers and delegates to dictate what is happening in the industry.

“There’s a threat ahead with the arrival of lithium batteries on a huge scale to the detriment of lead. In many ways we’re reacting to this in the right way — I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a boom of innovation and ideas.”

Highlights of the event weren’t confined to the presentations. The network opportunities, said delegates, were huge too. 18ABC followed immediately on from 6SLBC, the sixth secondary lead conference that is tied to the event, with many delegates choosing to attend booth.

18ABC kicked off on the Tuesday with an opening reception in the conference hotel early evening before the start of the main event the following day.

“For most of us it was simply just catching up with some of the people that we hadn’t seen previous events or had only spoken on a phone too for a while,” said one attendee. “It’s sociable, friendly and creates a good background for us to talk about more serious things later.”

On the evening before the final day, an ENTEK-sponsored gala dinner was held at a cliff-top venue in the open air.

(See full details on next page.)

The venue for the next ABC, in two years’ time, has yet to be announced.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 59

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC – GALA NIGHT

Gala night: unforgettable

It was almost certainly the most spectacular gala night dinner that lead battery conference delegates had ever seen. An astonishing night that started with a police escort and ended with traditional dancing and a huge firework show.

It was sponsored by ENTEK, the separator battery company, as its own party gift to the conference but a heavy burden for its success rested on the shoulders of the organizers.

The evening started with a bang

Parked outside the hotel were 50 VW sports jeeps — specially hired for the occasion and taking the organizers weeks to assemble from dealers across the island — which led the lucky first 200 delegates to the cliff top venue of the gala dinner.

With the sun setting and the rush hour in full tilt, delegates got a VIP trip to the venue. A local police escort with sirens blaring and lights flashing guided this elite band on all sides of the roads pushing everything nearby to a standstill.

For the delegates less prompt in get-

60 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

ting to the cars, huge luxury coaches also ploughed through the traffic — again with the wails of police sirens.

Those lucky to arrive first were greeted by a maze of stand-up tables, alcohol in its many forms for those wanting it, as well as mocktails and snacks. Rather than upset the digestion with long after-dinner speeches.

ENTEK speakers explained their plans over the aperitifs. They were brief and to the point.

“Everything that could be labelled ENTEK was labelled with it — and I mean everything,” one delegate told Batteries International. “But it kind of made sense that my cocktail glass, the pennants on our VW car, even the overhead lights said ENTEK. They’re paying for it so why be discreet — isn’t that what marketing people call branding?

“They’ve certainly announced their presence in Asia with a bang!”

But with now everything in the black of a tropical night, another spectacular sight greeted delegates — away from the reception area was a huge sea of glittering tables where the main food and entertainment was to

be held.

With the food and the wine came traditional Indonesian dancing from three stages set out around the tables.

It closed with a firework display and a general feeling that this was a gala dinner no-one would ever forget.

“Visually, it was the most impressive gala banquet I’ve ever seen,” said the same delegate. “From the vast array of candlelit tables at the beginning to the fireworks at the end. It was something else.”

The question on everyone’s lips — at least from the regular ABC delegates — was how could anyone surpass this year’s dinner?

Mark Stevenson, chair of the conference and also a conference organizer, was enigmatic about this. “For the last 20 years it’s been onwards and upwards. There’s still more that I reckon we can do…just wait and see!”

The location of the next Asia Battery Conference in 2021 is still being finalized. Likely possible candidates are Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam or Chiang Mai in northern Thailand but, says Stevenson, “for now my lips are sealed”!

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THANK YOU, BALI! It was an honor and a pleasure to sponsor this year’s Gala Dinner at the 18th ABC in Bali. Thank you to our customers and business partners for giving us an opportunity to discuss the exciting innovations we have ahead, as well as share the developments that ar are already in the works.

We look forward to our future together.

US • UK SINGAPORE • INDONESIA

+1 541 259 3901 (US) +44 191 268 5054 (UK) +65 6956 6119 (Singapore) +62 21 823 2295 (Indonesia)

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE ONE MINUTE GIVEBACK

A thank-you from the Bali Children’s Project It is with much happiness and gratitude that we send you these photos of the children who received the backpacks from you at your conference.

One hundred children were able to go to school with pride, wearing new uniforms and shoes, carrying a new backpack filled with supplies. Many of these children would not have gone at all, or would have been embarrassed.

This made an incredible difference in their lives, and you made so many children and families all through Bali extremely happy

I Gede Tata Pradita

— Linda Venter, on behalf of the Bali Children’s Project

I Gede Arnawa

Mirah, Wulan, Meri, Shantiasih

I Gede Yelo Ardiana

I Gusti Ayu Linda

I Gusti Ayu Made Bernita Dewi

I Gusti Ayu Purnami Yanti

I Kadek Bandem Artajaya

I Kadek Dion Arga Saputra

I Kadek Gigik Ginanta

I Kadek Revan Wirana

I Kadek Tresna Suryawan

I Ketut Agus Andika Putra

I Ketut Harta Dinata

I Komang Adi Guna

I Komang Gunawan

I Made Adi Arnata

I Made Alit

I Nengah Bagia Artana

I Nyoman Inus Suparsa

I Nyoman Riko Antara

I Wayan Agus Jonata Putra

Gigik, Dion, Agus

Ni Kadek Ana

Ni Kadek Diana Putri

62 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE ONE MINUTE GIVEBACK

Ni Kadek Mayanti

Ni Kadek Meriani

Ni Wayan Lestari

Ni Wayan Mei Purnami

Ni Wayan Swasti

Gusti Ayu Shantiasih

Ni Kadek Tia Puspita

Ni Kadek Valianti

Ni Kadek Wulan Dwipayani

Ni Komang Wiwin

Ni Luh Dela Vionita

Ni Luh Meisya Trisnantari

Ni Luh Meri Anggreni

Ni Luh Okta Dewi

Ni Made Desika

Ni Nyoman Dila Arini

Ni Putu Sri Mahadewi

Ni Wayan Ayu Ningsih

The lead battery industry — showing that it cares Sometimes charity doesn’t always begin at home, and that’s why attendees to the 18ABC were asked to hand over a dollar or give up a minute of their time to do something for poverty-stricken children in Bali, the island better known for its golden beaches and blue skies than for the children who grow up sometimes without a pair of shoes to their name.

For the first time, the lead battery industry has put its hands in its collective pocket to donate to local charities.

Organizers teamed up with Sorfin Yoshimura to launch the ‘One Minute Giveback’ on the first day of the Asia Lead Battery conference, this year being held on the Indonesian island of Bali.

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Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 63

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE ONE MINUTE GIVEBACK

The lead battery industry — showing that it cares Three local charities stand to benefit from the initiative, and on the day Battery Street Journal went to press it was the Bali Children’s Project that stood to benefit. Delegates were asked to either give cash or spend a minute packing backpacks for children who need school supplies.

A hundred backpacks, each worth $100, containing notebooks, pencils, school uniforms and other supplies were packed by members of the conference and handed to children selected by the Bali Children’s Project, a charity which is run by New Yorker Linda Venter, who spends around five months of the year in Bali. Bali Children’s Projects build libraries, schools and health centres and runs a sex education programme in high schools, as well as supports primary age children to go to school.

“These particular children all come from the village of Bongkasa,” she said. “Some of them are orphaned and having to be looked after by their ex-

tended family. Bali is unique in that it’s a tourist destination and it looks very rich and everyone thinks it’s very plush.

“But underneath it are these children, who don’t even have lunch to take to school; they quite literally go hungry. “$100 will get them through a whole year at school.”

The organizers say that over $40,000 was collected over the three days including several four figure donations, Taiwanese VRLA maker BB Battery is known to have donated thousands of dollars as has Sorfin.

The other two charities being helped on the second and third days of the conference are Yayasan Solemen Indonesia and the East Bali Poverty Project.

Yayasan was founded in 2010 to raise awareness of issues and give money to support accredited agencies and projects for disadvantaged people in Bali.

It sends medical teams out to or-

SNAPSHOT — INDONESIA Indonesia is home to 269 million people from more than 300 ethnic groups.

Since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s it has achieved steady economic growth and is the largest economy in south-east Asia. GDP per head has risen from $800 in 2000 to $2,900 last year, far below the world average of around $19,000.

Many of its people still live in dire poverty, and not far from the five-star luxury hotels and sandy beaches so loved by the tourists flocking to Bali —one of the islands in the country’s archipelago — are mountain villages and communities with no schools, health facilities, sanitation or other conveniences taken for granted in the developed world.

The 2004 tsunami killed more than 160,000 people and wiped out much of the infrastructure of Aceh province, destroying more than 100,000 homes.

Although Indonesia’s resorts are famous for their beauty, tourism only accounts for 4% of the country’s economy.

64 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

Linda Venter, founder of the Bali Children’s Project

phanages and villages, providing health checks and other services.

The East Bali Poverty Project was founded in 1998 by David Booth, a British resident of Bali who received a plea for help from an isolated mountain village which he says ‘had been forgotten by time and progress’.

Community surveys then found other villagers living in abject poverty with no sanitation, roads, health facilities or even electricity.

The charity helps disadvantaged communities by running initiatives like providing sustainable food sources which communities can then run themselves.

“We intend to give something back to Bali through cash donations and delegate participation work onsite,” said Mark Richardson, the head of organizers Conference Works.

“Tourism dollars often miss much of Bali’s rural population. For them life is very different from the luxury beachfront hotels, spas and cool beach clubs that dot the island.

“With help from our Giveback partner Sorfin Yoshimura and the care of our three charities we aim to make a difference and help those in need in Bali.

“A very big thank you to the generous donation from the BB Battery team. The donations will make a huge difference to those in need, the disadvantaged, the ‘diffabled’, the homeless and the marginalized in Bali.”

One delegate said he was proud to belong to an industry that now realized it should be giving something back.

“It’s a great initiative — we are the lucky ones and it doesn’t hurt at all to remember those who aren’t,” he said.

“I hope this is something that will be introduced in the European conference, and become a regular feature of both.”

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — PROFILE: LEAD AWARD WINNER

Frank Fleming wins International Lead Award Frank Fleming, one of the cutting edge R&D figures of the battery business, is this year’s winner of the International Lead Award for his services to the industry. Batteries International interviewed him after the event.

For the past 40 years Fleming has been at the sharp end of the research, manufacture and commercial development of the lead battery business and has been widely admired for his ability to turn theoretical lab tested work into practical solutions that can be transferred to the manufacturing line.

In 1975 he started a BSc degree in applied chemistry at Leicester Polytechnic in the UK. However, Fleming’s first proper battery experience started during a so-called gap year at college when — as was the custom at that time — students took a year’s work experience as part of their degree course.

In those days Chloride was one of the three top battery manufacturers in the world. Legend had it that the sun never set in the Chloride empire — it had operations all around the globe.

It was also the stuff of legend too.

It was there at Chloride that Fleming came under the influence of Ken Peters — nowadays the man recognized as having been the pioneer of VRLA batteries who turned the technology into a commercial phenomenon.

After graduation in 1978 he knew what he wanted to do and he went on to take a Phd in solid state proton conduction at Leeds University.

So with doctorate in hand, he returned to work for Chloride, which later was to become Hawker Batteries, and for the next 19 years the firm was an integral part of his life.

His initial work was as an applied scientist for Chloride Technical, the R&D arm of the group. Oddly, for a man whose career has been almost exclusively spent in the lead industry for a time he was involved with Salford University and the Danish Energy Research Laboratory, studying secondary lithium batteries. This work resulted in the development of a lithium/PEO/V6O13 secondary button cell.

As his experience grew, he became a

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Frank Fleming in his award acceptance speech urged the industry to cooperate and pool knowledge and resources to ensure that the performance of lead batteries would meet the challenges of a changing dynamic marketplace. Here, left to right, Andy Bush, Don Karner, Frank Fleming, Mark Stevenson and Alistair Davidson

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 65

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — PROFILE: LEAD AWARD WINNER member of a team of on-site troubleshooters whose role was to resolve local processing problems and to understand the unique electrochemical phenomena that disrupted Chloride’s manufacturing.

The Torque Starter problem

His biggest challenge was the SLI AGM product called the Torque Starter. It quickly became apparent that the battery, after a period of up to six months in the field, developed problems that resulted in numerous warranty returns and it was part of Fleming’s team to determine what the causes were.

Eventually they determined the product was suffering from dendritic growth, which was resolved with material design and process changes, but also from a less obvious mechanism,

that the most negative cell, cell six, would often dry-out, resulting in a high resistance cell.

“We determined that the mechanism was a consequence of the product being designed with a very open common gas space between all six cells. During formation the electrolyte would pool between the cells resulting, at the end of formation, in the most positive cell having the highest acid concentration and a progressive reduction in specific gravity to the most negative cell,” he recalls.

“It was determined that cell six could then dry out via a water vapor transfer mechanism in the gas space to the higher acid concentration cells, in return preferentially consuming more of the oxygen present in the common gas space. Of course, this mechanism was accelerated by the use of the relatively

The early AGM batteries were plagued with problems — it was not just a Chloride difficulty but a worldwide one — which became labelled PCL — premature capacity loss. The cycle life of AGM batteries was found to decrease spectacularly in the early months of the batteries’ use. This was a huge problem, in particular, for Chloride which was involved in huge potential sales for telecom companies.

ALABC CONVENES THE FIRST PCL WORKSHOP

From left to right: Ken Peters, David Prengaman, Kathyrn Bullock, Michael Mayer and Frank Fleming

In 1992 the so-called “antimony-free effect”, or premature capacity loss, PCL, was a severe defect in lead-acid technology that limited cycle life to a great degree. It was a primary focus of the ALABC research programme.

ALABC sponsored a PCL workshop in Lower Beeding in Sussex, UK at a small country hotel; Industry experts were invited from all parts of the world.

The primary outcome of this first meeting was the identification of two types of PCL, PCL1 being a grid/active material interface problem and PCL2 being a failure to maintain connectivity in the positive active material, the PAM.

66 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

low purity secondary oxides which were very common in those days.”

As well as gaining a thorough knowledge of the design and processing of AGM products it was a tremendous team-building period that finally convinced him that lead-acid battery manufacturing was going to offer him an interesting career and an useful life.

During this time, he spent extended periods working in the South Africa and US manufacturing facilities on the Torque Starter, one of the first AGM batteries.

The early AGM batteries were plagued with problems — it was not just a Chloride difficulty but a worldwide one — which became labelled PCL — premature capacity loss. The cycle life of AGM batteries was found to decrease spectacularly in the early months of the batteries’ use.

This was a huge problem, in particular, for Chloride which was involved in huge potential sales for telecom companies.

ALABC and PCL

Fleming, with what became a later legendary group of people including Kathyrn Bullock, Ken Peters, David Rand, Michael Myers, Pat Moseley and Russ Newnham, was one of the team recruited by the then newly formed ALABC to solve the problem.

Around this time, Hawker acquired the Gates Company and Fleming became involved in the development and manufacturing of TPPL batteries — a crucial interest in the latter part of his career. Thin plate pure lead batteries offer greater cycle life and deeper power.

There were other parts to his life going on as well. In 1983 he married Alison, his wife of 36 years, and they quickly had two children, Nick in 1988 and Paul in 1990.

In 1986 the research arm of Chloride was disbanded and he was asked to continue working in a plant environment largely because of his overseas experience. The factory was almost exclusively OEM SLI manufacturing, and with the margins being very thin, the focus was on high volume production with consistent performance.

“At the time I remember designing such an OEM SLI product and proudly informing the technical director that the design test group had achieved over 50s at the CCA rate only to be promptly berated for giving too much lead away!” he recalls.

Perhaps a key post in his career development was his appointment as techni-

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — PROFILE: LEAD AWARD WINNER cal director for Hawker Energy Products in 1989. Hawker was one wing of Chloride’s battery group and an iconic brand. Here his managerial skills were brought out in one of the toughest assignments of his early career.

This was the relocation of an entire manufacturing facility from London to Newport in south Wales which included not just the introduction of new manufacturing processes and fundamental R&D but also maintaining the battery quality and for want of a better phrase, product integrity.

The next phase of his career was with his relocation to Warrensburg, Missouri in 1995. Hawker had acquired Gate’s Energy Products Inc. Here he became an integral member of the acquisition team and building a $25m extension.

By 1998 he had been promoted once more, this time to be global director for standby power. Here he was responsible for the strategic and technical direction of Hawker Batteries’ standby products for manufacturing facilities in Europe and US.

NorthStar is born

This came to an end in 2000 when Fleming left Hawker to become chief technical officer for NorthStar Batteries. He was also the firm’s co-founder with three Hawker Battery colleagues, Jerry Hoffman, Joel Gibson and Scott Erwin.

Fleming looks back at this period of his life with a kind of amazement. “The first year of NorthStar was like starting from a completely white sheet of paper,” he says. “We had to think of what customers to approach, what design of the battery we would deploy, what size of battery and the like.”

In the event they designed and built a battery factory from scratch, focusing on telecoms batteries for the rapidly expanding cell phone market. “We saw there was an opportunity in this sector,” Fleming says. “And we just went for it.”

It was clear to Fleming and his cofounders that telecommunication standby power was moving away from centralized locations to distributed sites given the need the vast coverage requirements of cellular phones.

Given their previous experience at Hawker the co-founders also understood the technical advantages of thinplate pure lead technology.

And then a stroke of ill-fortune came to their good. The US economy went into recession dragging the telecoms

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“We tried to keep the true purpose of our endeavour quiet within the industry and even mischievously broadcast some misinformation such as we were building an EV lead-acid battery factory,” says Fleming. “That caused a few surprised looks and brought us many beers from sympathetic industry colleagues at battery shows.” industry with it and while other established firms were losing sales and revenue NorthStar Battery had no battery sales to lose. Moreover, to stimulate demand the US Federal Reserve dropped interest rates, so easing the firm’s financial loading.

They were also very secretive about their plans. “We tried to keep the true purpose of our endeavour quiet within the industry and even mischievously broadcast some misinformation such as we were building an EV lead-acid battery factory,” says Fleming. “That caused a few surprised looks and brought us many beers from sympathetic industry colleagues at battery shows.”

He recalls too that the hardest part for himself was the technical isolation that came with the job. In the past he had had a larger technical group around him to bounce ideas off — and the Hawker Battery Group had one of the most experienced and knowledgeable technical teams in the industry.

That said he remains grateful to some of the outside technical help he received during the early years, in particular that from George Zguris, Bob Nelson and David Boden.

The first batteries found a ready niche with telecoms giant Ericsson and thanks to what he calls sheer persistence and endeavour, particularly by another colleague Stefan Jansson, they rapidly became Ericsson’s principal lead acid battery supplier.

The mobile telecoms boom

The rapid roll-out of cellular telecommunications around the world was to immediately throw up further challenges that came from developing nations with irregular electrical grids that were prone to frequent outages.

Because of this NorthStar’s batteries were being extensively cycled with little opportunity for being recharged. “As a result, they were operating in a partial state of charge,” he recalls. “And so, we coined the phrase uncontrolled partial state of charge, uPSoC. “The electrochemical design was clearly unsuited for such operation. We were forced to modify the electrochemistry to be capable of surviving under such abusive conditions. In reality, we increased the charge acceptance of the battery by, among other things, the introduction of extra carbon into the negative electrode.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 67

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — PROFILE: LEAD AWARD WINNER “The NorthStar ‘Blue’ battery rapidly became, and remains today, a very robust AGM battery for many cellular operators in unstable mains regions.”

NorthStar went on to become a highly successful manufacturer of advanced lead-acid batteries for telecommunication, UPS and transportation applications. This summer NorthStar was acquired by EnerSys. In 2017 it was time for something new. So, he took up the opportunity to become a partner in Electric Applications Inc working on a US DoE sponsored project between Argonne National Laboratory and a consortium of US lead-acid battery manufacturers. The project — arguably the most exciting for a generation — uses cyclotron technology to look at, real time, the charging and discharging of a lead battery.

Leap forwards in lead

The project could lead to a new generation of advanced lead batteries capable of approaching some aspects of lithium’s performance. The same cyclotron facility in Argonne was used in the development of lithium batteries a few years ago.

So far, the ANL work has focused on the negative electrode, in particular the precipitation and dissolution of lead sulfate crystals. “The powerful combination of Argonne’s talented scientists and advanced scientific techniques is starting to unravel some of the intricacies of the complex electrochemical processes involved,” he says. “And so they afford us opportunities to improve key characteristics such as utilisation, cyclic longevity and charge acceptance.

“Over the past few years lead-acid has been largely passed over by lithium storage, but recently users have begun to see that lead-acid does offer a unique proposition, that with some muchneeded development work can make the technology very attractive in certain sectors of energy storage applications.”

Fleming believes that a complete rethink of the entire lead package is needed. “There is no doubt that our technology is hampered by the legacy top-lug parallel plate design that is employed in more than 99% of our product offerings,” he says.

“This design is very inefficient in terms of energy density, with 70% of the lead not being involved in the electrochemical reactions, it also does not have the optimum geometry to homogeneously facilitate the complex electrochemical processes.

“The reactions and processes occur-

68 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

“I’m excited to still be contributing to an innovative industry which continues to push the boundaries of research and development. Advanced lead batteries are key to the future of battery energy storage and electrification as the demand for safe and reliable battery storage is growing so rapidly” ring closest to the lug are very different from those occurring at the bottom of the plate.”

Lead in a BESS future

Most recently Fleming has become a partner in EAI Grid Storage, a new business that advises and designs gridlevel battery energy storage systems.

He says the firm has already had several international opportunities including load-levelling renewables for microgrids and an EV fast charging opportunity in Missouri, where he lives. These are all potentially employing lead-acid batteries as the electrochemical storage.

“There is no doubt in my mind that lead-acid has many attributes to make it successful for BESS applications,” he says. These are items such as safety, recyclability and a multitude of quality manufacturers, but at the end of the day, it will be the financials such as $/ kWh of energy throughput, that will decide which technology becomes the dominant player.

Speaking at the International Lead Award ceremony in Bali this September, Liverpool-born Fleming, 64, told Batteries International: “I’m very honoured to be recognised in this way.

Working in this industry is like being part of a large worldwide family.

“I’m excited to still be contributing to

an innovative industry which continues to push the boundaries of research and development. Advanced lead batteries are key to the future of battery energy storage and electrification as the demand for safe and reliable battery storage is growing so rapidly.

“This has been recognized by the US government which is supporting our industry’s joint research programme through the national laboratories. As an industry we must recognise these opportunities and ensure our technology is part of the solution.”

“I also think young scientists and engineers can enjoy a great career in our industry because there is still so much to achieve in terms of the electro-chemistry and the technology. I hope this award will go some way to inspiring anyone considering a career in battery chemistries to join one of the many successful lead battery companies or research institutes.”

Don Karner, the president of EAI said at the ILA ceremony: “Frank’s entire career has been spent advancing lead battery technology. His current work is on the cutting edge of lead battery science research.

“I congratulate Frank on his long career of industry leadership and commend the conference organizer’s committee for recognizing his contributions to the lead battery industry.”

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS A leading industry figure told Batteries International of the mood, substance and celebrations at this September’s Asia Battery Conference in Bali.

An ill wind for the future but optimism prevails It was at this year’s ABC conference in Bali that delegates first felt the chill wind of what may be lead acid’s autumn season. Yes, at last it’s official, lead’s superiority in the battery market is on the wane and most of the new markets are passing it by.

What’s more, the current decline is without the forecast drop in future SLI sales due to the rising EV market share. It would seem appropriate that this turning of the tide was revealed in the seafront resort of Nusa Dua in Bali.

In contrast, the welcome drinks reception on the Tuesday night before the conference, at the beach front in the Westin, was an uplifting experience.

A no-nonsense bienvenu from Mark Stevenson followed by traditional dance entertainment engendered a very relaxed mood. Delegates could chat, catch up and chill without being drowned out by loud musical entertainment. A far cry from other conference receptions in other venues.

The next day the conference kicked off with an introduction from chairman Stevenson, who outlined the challenges facing the lead industry. He reminded us all that lead acid’s dominance was on the wane and that he hoped that this conference would give

some pointers as to how the future could be improved.

There was a noticeably quiet atmosphere at this conference, almost a resigned acceptance of darker days to come. There was that nagging fear, previously at the back of all delegate’s minds: could this in fact be lead acid’s fall?

Well if this is lead’s autumn season, then surely the first yellow leaves appeared in presentations by CRU’s lead analyst Neil Hawkes’s and followed by his Wood Mackenzie counterpart Farid Ahmed.

It was Hawkes in fact, as the first speaker, who had the difficult job of predicting lead’s future by reading the industry’s commercial runes. Ore mining statistics and metal commodity pricing contain hidden messages that only the high priests of the market forces can divine.

Hawkes did a good job of analysing the available data to show us the rocky commercial road that seems to lie ahead for lead batteries in the secondary battery market. We often see predictions of lead (battery) sales values at conferences and while many seek to reassure the delegates, Hawkes’ presentation was as honest and robust

as possible based on all the factors surrounding lead mining and recycling.

His presentation gave two notable takeaways: a predicted decline in ICE vehicles from the mid-2020s, giving way to xEV sales (Figure 1) and the possible oversupply of lead into the market this year and next. This was neatly backed up by the Port Pirie statistics showing the current decline in refined lead exports to Asia.

His conclusions, however, did give succour: the reasons causing a price drop could create a new demand for lead as battery prices fall. This combined with LAB performance improvements could help to gain ground in new and emerging markets.

In his words: “Lead is in a fight for its long-term survival. But the imminent death of lead is greatly exaggerated.�

The very few words of comfort from Hawkes were counteracted with further gloom as Farid Ahmed opened up his presentation with the title: “LEAD IS DEAD�.

In capital letters.

This is in stark contrast to his several previous conferences where his presentations were mostly titled “LEAD AIN’T DEAD�. So what has hap-

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CRU’s Hawkes: “Lead is in a fight for its long-term survival. But the imminent death of lead is greatly exaggerated.�

Figure 1: CRU forecasts are for xEV increase and ICE decrease for the next 20 years

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Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 71

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS BATTERY DESIGN

A no-nonsense welcome from Mark Stevenson followed by traditional dance entertainment engendered a relaxed mood. Delegates could chat, catch up and chill without being drowned out by loud musical entertainment

pened, what has brought about this change in Ahmed’s prognosis?

According to him, the clue is in the presentation title, it is mindless bureaucracy and vested interest which are inducing lead’s decline.

Chief among these are the European legislators which are still snapping at the heels of lead acid battery technology hoping to revoke the Article 58(2) exemption of REACH regulations once lithium is able to take its place.

There is also, of course, the small matter of electrification of automobiles which, as was pointed out by ILA director Alastair Davidson, is still a vehicle (pun intended) for lead acid sales. However, with an impending lead ban stayed only by a regularly reviewed exemption, it is clear that the intention within the EU is to remove the lead from our vehicle batteries.

Despite Ahmed showing all the inherent problems of vehicle electrification on our roads, and the consequences of replacing a known technology with a still untested alternative of questionable environmental benefit, we all know that if the EU has made up its mind, it is unlikely to listen to reason or even logic.

Lead acid battery design was another important topic, probably under-represented considering the performance improvements that seem to be required to gain or hold market share in existing and new applications.

There were presentations from well established advanced battery design companies, notably Gridtential for its bipolar and Ecoult’s UltraBattery.

Gridtential seemed to be adopting the licensing route and made a polished presentation in an attempt to convince battery manufacturers that its technology could be adopted with minimum expense and disruption into their manufacturing processes.

Ecoult, which is owned by East Penn, concentrated on the use of analytical tools and electronic hardware to emulate the single cell balance and management methods used by the lithium ion industry to improve lead acid battery life.

The development of analytical tools utilizing performance characteristics of lead acid chemistry to identify where and how performance could be improved is a great step forward.

In the case of Ecoult its proposition to put intercell electronic modifiers with a management system similar to lithium ion batteries would of course bring benefits in a whole range of applications. Very

importantly it could be used as a software development tool to place lead batteries alongside lithium ion ones with a communicating interface and a common controller.

The best of both technologies could in fact be combined to give low cost bulk energy storage.

A performance enhancement for the UltraBattery proposed by Furukawa Battery used a punched grid for the positive plate. According to Yusuke Ogino, a manager at Furukawa, this gave a higher cycle life than the expanded grid version of the UltraBattery and a cast grid version of an EFB battery.

The tests performed were endurance, high temperature overcharge, start stop cycle life (JIS version) plus initial characterization tests that showed a good improvement in CCA in particular.

Figure 5 below shows the quality of pasting and grid immersion in the active material alongside a performance improvement of 220% in heavy load endurance. Again, performance modelling techniques were cited as playing a big role in the design and decision-making process to adopt the various improvements.

The development of analytical tools utilizing performance characteristics of lead acid chemistry to identify where and how performance could be improved is a great step forward.

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Figure 5. Furukawa Usuke Ogino – Utrabattery Grid and AM cross section (slide 22)

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72 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS He also left us with a sobering vision a presentation showing the efforts of of scrap lead-acid battery stockpiles the ILA and the BCI to seek a techniresulting from a decline in demand for cal solution to the long-term survival secondary lead if future lead acid bat- of the lead battery industry. tery sales are reduced.

Concentrating mainly on the hybrid In contrast to ! ! )' " $ these messages, vehicle market, he outlined the areas (

Alastair Davidson had whipped up of research undertaken to improve lead acid’s performance in this market.

Most of the R&D thrust seems to be based on improving dynamic charge acceptance to maximize the capture of energy generated from braking and run periods.

The pragmatic approach of changing the standards to obtain results that matched real-life experience should also reap benefits if resources, currently taken up with reducing water loss, are used for other development work.

Cycle life and energy density improvements were also tabled, with emphasis on the rapidly growing BESS market as the target application. This is valuable collaborative research which should give additional value to lead batteries as a preferred technology.

But is it enough? And will the long Ambitious targets predicted lithium ion cost be reduced Predominantly through the use of ad- to near lead acid’s price tag? This ditives, particularly in EFBs, rather should be a matter of wider discussion than any radical design change, ambi- in the industry and a lapse in an othertious performance targets were pre- wise full conference agenda. sented. These were eminently desirThe morning session clearly outlined able, but very ambitious, particularly the current challenges facing lead acid a 500% increase in DCA by 2022. batteries in a world where battery sales Paola Atanassova, Cabot’s R&D The problem of water loss during high are burgeoning with new applications manager, gave an impressive account of temperature PSoC standard tests, at- but a declining SLI market.

the firm’s holistic development plans for tributable to the use of carbon addiWhile there were some messages of

additives tives, was also touched upon. reassurance, these were based on the lead industry finding ways into emerg ) # $ (*% ing markets and upping its game to hold its traditional market positions in standby power and fork lift truck applications, for example.

If there was any complacency in delegates before the morning session, then it was soon replaced by the end with an appetite to take on future marketing and product development initiatives.

In the afternoon, researchers and major battery manufacturers plus their suppliers seemed to be working all out to change the fortunes of this beleaguered technology.

If lead is dead no-one had told the

rest of the presenters, or perhaps they

had chosen the ostrich method to ig nore the message. Or maybe they knew & ! ("

something we didn’t?

Figure 2. Cabot: The effect of surface area of carbon additives in NAM

It was at this point in the conference

that my interest really began to awak en.

Additives

Figure 3. Black Diamond: Formation of an inproved AM/grid interface

The simplest approach to describing the conference is to look at the presentation categories and comment on the content and usefulness of selected material. The first and still dominant topic was that of additives.

These accounted for about 14 of the 54 presentations; a lower percentage than that on offer two years ago in Kuala Lumpur.

This probably reflects the fact that field trials are being conducted with no definitive results as yet and also that the key drivers of PSoC and DCA

' ! "

! %$" 76 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS Additives accounted for about 14 of the 54 presentations; a lower percentage than two years ago. This probably reflects the fact that field trials are being conducted with no definitive results as yet and also that the key drivers of PSoC and DCA improvements have reached a peak in the number of iterations that can be trialled, Further investigation is of limited value. improvements have reached a peak in the number of iterations that can be trialled and further investigation is of limited value.

That said there were some offerings that shed light on the role of carbon in AM and also some new innovation in reducing water loss attributable to carbon during standard SLI testing.

The water loss research was probably started a few years ago and it appears that the present thinking is that the field trials show a different picture, with negligible water loss attributable to carbon additives. There is now a push to change the standard testing, which shows a problem, to a schedule which more accurately reflects real life conditions.

This should, in theory, remove the need for further resources being allocated to understanding this phenomenon.

It is difficult to not speculate on the value of the extent of research into additives. Just how far can you push AM utilization and what little more can we squeeze out for increasing levels of investment?

At some stage the law of diminishing returns has to be a factor for continued research in this field.

That said, there was little sign of a slow-down in the investment of time and resources by battery manufacturing suppliers to show even small advantages in using their products.

The main companies that have dominated the additive development R&D efforts, were again well represented by established firms such as Cabot Corporation.

Paola Atanassova, Cabot’s R&D manager, gave an impressive account of their holistic development plans for additives, including carbon in both positive and negative plates. Cabot has a fairly wide portfolio with additive improvements across their whole range of products. However, for this conference it was their work on silica for gel batteries and enhanced carbon products for charge acceptance improvement which were highlighted.

(See figure 2.)

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Black Diamond’s Paul Everill, vice research director for Exide Technolopresident for research and develop- gies, discuss the firm’s own unbiased ment, made bold claims about the investigation into the causes of water deleterious effect that NAM carbon loss attributable to carbon additives additives have on positive plate cor- in standard SLI tests. rosion. He said the firm’s molecular Exide’s targeted research concluded rebar product in the PAM mix would that the cause of water loss could help to reduce this by forming a bar- be down to impurities in the carbon rier layer incorporating their carbon

nanotubes at the AM/grid alloy interface.

(See figure 3.)

Their explanation of this barrier layer & ! (" being a result of “sacrificial oxidation�

was as easy to comprehend as their assertion that molecular rebar changed the DNA of lead acid batteries.

Corrosing layers

However, their microscopy results did show a distinct difference in the nature of the corrosion layers. The corrosion of the PbAC sample with the molecular rebar additive did not have the characteristic duplex layer of corroded grids using standard PAM mixtures. In addition, the cycle life tests Trinidad’s targeted research for Exide showed a clear improvement in the concluded that the cause of water loss rate of corrosion for the PbAC sam- could be down to impurities in the carbon ples. material being released by lixiviation This could well be worth following (leaching) in hot sulphuric acid. The normally up. dormant impurities such as nickel, copper Investigation of the role of carbon in and iron could be oxidized and plate out

AM has normally been the province of on the negative. They would then have a supply companies to lead acid batthe catalytic effect of lowering the hydrogen tery manufacturers.

However, it was evolution voltage and thereby increase the ' ! "

refreshing water loss on fixed voltage charging. ! %$" to see Francisco Trinidad,

Figure 4. Exide: The presence of electroactive metal impurities in carbon additives

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 77

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS

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Fig 5. ENTEK: Separator properties effect on oxygen transport rate

Figure 6. Microporous; DCA upgrade with carbon separator booster mat

material being released by lixiviation acid. The normally dormant impurities such as nickel, copper and iron could be oxidized and plate out on the negative.

They would then have a catalytic effect of lowering the hydrogen evolution voltage and thereby increase the water loss on fixed voltage charging.

The use of carbon nanotubes would increase the surface area of the added carbon and release a greater amount of the impurities into the electrolyte.

Figure 4 is a volcano plot that shows the relationship between the electroactivity of various metal impurities and the absorption energy of hydrogen on metal. There is a clear group

of very electroactive metals, some of which have been found in significant levels as impurities in some carbon nanotubes.

The effect of hydrogen evolution reaction catalysts was also the subject of the presentation by Mateusz

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Microporous’ David Mihara: an allencompassing offering that included water loss control, stratification reduction, high efficiency rib configurations and use of carbons to increase charge acceptance.

78 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

Donten, R&D manager for Amer-Sil. Amer-Sil’s solution was to put inhibitors in their PVC separators which would effectively raise the end voltage on charge to remove hydrogen by producing stibine gas (SbH3). Since it also takes some hydrogen with it the effectiveness in reducing water loss has to be limited.

On the same theme of carbon and water loss, Plamen Nikolov, associate professor at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences also waded in with its contribution to the understanding of water loss attributed to carbon additives.

The academy proposes a counterintuitive model where self-discharge on overcharge simultaneously generates hydrogen gas. It also identifies the preferred location of PbSO4 formation due to self-discharge as being at the contact interface Pb/C/H2SO4. The greater the contact area of C the more gas that will be produced.

In the category of other additives, it seems that companies such as Jinkeli are still making steady but valuable progress in improving PbA performance. Mike Cheng, sales and marketing for Shandong Jinkeli, said the firm’s research, based mainly on optimizing the balance of components in both positive and negative active materials, has resulted in their additives JSS06 (NAM) and JS1002 + enhanced fibres (PAM) which seem to boost most of the important SLI properties, including CCA, DCA and cycle life.

A new product GVFloc, from Goonvean Fibres, was on offer, in this case for the positive plate. Again, AM strength leading to better cycle life and lower water loss compared with carbon containing additives were the main benefits. Small improvements in reserve capacity were also noted.

One of the main features of the additive, according to Christian Withers, technical manager for the firm, seems to be a good dispersion ability which prevents localized high concentration areas which may trigger deleterious side effects or local weak areas in the plate.

Separators too

Moving on to separators, the well known companies Amersil, ENTEK, Daramic, Microporous and Hollingworth and Vose had useful contributions to make regarding electrolyte stratification, water loss and cycle life improvements.

Understanding water loss, or rather the lack of it in EFB batteries with carbon additives, was a source of a

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS

very neat piece of research by ENTEK. In their presentation, primarily about separator process oil and oxidation, they included the work done on identifying an oxygen cycle in flooded lead acid batteries similar to that of VRLA batteries.

Their argument was that one of the reasons for lower water loss values was the transport of oxygen at low overcharge rates from the positive to the negative plate. They also proposed that this transport was through the separator rather than over the top, where you would expect to find gaseous products in a free-flowing liquid electrolyte.

This was based on the findings of a workshop in Bruges earlier this year, in which it was proposed that 40% of a trickle overcharge could be consumed in an oxygen cycle. ENTEK found conclusively that the amount of oxygen transported through the separator was a function of backweb thickness, porosity and tortuosity.

Figure 5 shows the relative values for oxygen transport in a 0.25 and a 0.15 backweb standard ENTEK separator. The ENTEK LR (low resistance) 0.25 backweb separator provided the highest oxygen transport and by inference should result in the lowest water loss.

The contribution of the separator to the improvement and ultimately the commercial fortunes of lead acid batteries should not be underestimated.

The properties under scrutiny such as DCA, water loss, PSoC and deep cycling endurance are all key parameters in keeping lead competitive in current and future markets.

In this respect the presentation by David Mihara, vice president of technology for Microporous, was an allencompassing offering described by them as a “modular approach�. This included water loss control, stratification reduction, high efficiency rib configurations and use of carbons to increase charge acceptance.

This has resulted in separator designs that have lower acid displacement and electrical resistance. The firm has also developed rib and glass mat designs which reduce stratification in PSoC applications. In addition, spray on water loss inhibitors and a carbon DCA booster mat which is attached to the non-ribbed side of the separator are also on offer.

Results from all those modifications were reported as significant improvements with the DCA booster mat giv-

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*

" ! ! # ($

Figure 7. Abertax: Proprietary GEL filling method c.f. standard GEL filling &

! $%"

Figure 8. Aurelius: Proposed lead oxide recovery unit

$#

ing a very impressive DCA upgrade

! $#" Figure 6. This is probably the closest a separator company can get to being a one-stop shop.

Another area of interest and a little under-represented this year were the engineering and processes used in LAB manufacture.

Manufacturing developments

Two presentations by Wirtz and a eulogy in praise of Sovema’s strip lead alloy continuous casting and rolling machine were the most direct manufacturing offerings. The Sovema ReEvolution wide strip casting machine promises better strip thickness control (+/- 0.01mm), on the fly strip adjustments and better grain structures. All this at a handy 12 tonnes/hour production rate.

Wirtz’s second presentation showed substantial savings in material use via a steel belt pasting method. This was claimed to provide a material saving of around $150,000 per one million

batteries. The benefits of a well controlled process should not be ignored.

Other points of interest were the GEL filling process by Abertax and the end of line battery tester

by CMW. The Abertax one stage, two process charging and GEL filling looks extremely promising and should remove the major problem and bottleneck in GEL VRLA battery manufacturing.

Figure 7 shows the current state of the art for GEL filling and compares

The process of manufacturing lead and active material from recycled batteries seems to be on the cusp of introducing hydrometallurgical methods.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 79

FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS it with Abertax’s GEL circulation process.

The process of manufacturing lead and active material from recycled batteries seems to be on the cusp of introducing hydrometallurgical methods.

One interesting submission from Athan Fox, chief technology officer at Aurelius, detailed the progress they have made in building a pilot plant and manufacturing suitable material for use as battery grade lead oxide for paste mixing.

This process converts the active material from scrap battery plates using an environmentally friendly dissolution and precipitation process

followed by a final calcination step to produce a high purity leady oxide.

Aurelius also claims that the final product can be tuned to give a customer-specified ratio of alpha to beta lead oxide by adjusting the parameters of the process.

Figure 8 shows a diagram of their recovery equipment and an estimate of the capital and operating costs.

A presentation on battery formation charging connectors by Mike McDonagh representing a consortium of companies including Digatron and UK Powertech, showed the surprising effects of using old, worn connectors of standard design on the energy use,

battery scrap and cost of that process.

Faster formation times in modern factories means higher currents. The present connector and working practices are inadequate. A high resistance corrosion layer which forms on the contact surface of the connector head was identified and analysed as lead sulphate gives a higher resistance. This resistance means a higher on charge voltage needing more energy to form batteries.

The cost of this would result in losses of over $100,000 per 1 million batteries produced. New connector designs were proposed along with modified working practices.

THE USE OF LEAD IN GROWING OR EMERGING MARKETS

A topic that could have been better represented in the conference was the use of lead acid batteries in growing or emerging markets. This is not about R&D to improve batteries for these applications, it is about how suited present designs are for adoption by those markets.

Angela Rolufs, vice president for strategic initiatives at Paragon Solutions, described four current projects involving lead acid as a stationary energy storage technology.

These are: developing a network of fast charging EV stations in Missouri, the St James Winery Sustainable Development Plan, the Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T) Ecoville Microgrid and the Army Directive 2017-07 Installation Energy and Water Security Policy.

The work undertaken by Paragon Solutions covers a really wide range of stationary applications which are becoming critically important. The

use of a battery bank to charge methods of providing reliable and

lithium ion EVs has many distinct cheaper power. Use of lead acid

advantages: for stationary energy storage has the advantage of being more cost • High power delivery from a battery source removes the need for a effective (if correctly implemented) &

! $%" large drain on the supply grid and than using other competing battery reduces the substation installation chemistries. costs.

This will make their implementation • Multiple charging points can be more likely over a larger operated simultaneously without geographical area and number of pushing up peak demand. applications. • Peak demand charges can be Another interesting project is removed by charging the lead acid that with the US Army Corps stationary battery from renewables of Engineers which has a direct from the grid at off peak times. interest in “Autonomous Vehicle Use of a lead acid stationary Technologiesâ€? and use of aâ€? Tactical battery provides a positive return Microgrid with V2 Chargingâ€?. All on investment for fast EV charging this with no upgrade or further stations making their deployment development of lead acid’s more attractive for investors (slide performance characteristics. below).

Battery manufacturers, the ILA Use of community microgrids and the CBI should take note of and a sustainable energy supply the immediate marketing and sales

for businesses are becoming potential which lead acid needs in $#

more accepted as bona fide order to stay in the race.

! $#"

Angela Rolufs, vice president for strategic initiatives at Paragon Solutions. Figure 9 (above): ROI for lead acid BESS fast charging station at Missouri gas stations (slide 10)

80 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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FULL EVENT REVIEW: 18 ABC — THE PRESENTATIONS

Using lead batteries for frequency regulation Herbert Geiss, director at Battery Consulting, presentation titled “Evaluation of Lead-Acid VRLA AGM Cells for Frequency-regulation Duty in Electrical Power Grids�

The study by Geiss on behalf of Narada once again shows the industry just how valuable this expert really is. Looking at a simulation of AGM batteries used for frequency regulation in power grids, Geiss found that the batteries were limited in their operation due to problems with the negative and positive plates on

charge and discharge respectively. interrogation pulse it could be Using the IEC 61427-2 determined when to subject the international standard, he tested battery to a maintenance charge.

10 2V 1000Ah sets of batteries The rising end-of-charge voltage with differing carbon formulations. was a charge acceptance issue This problem, particularly at the attributed to PbSO4 build-up during negative, was related to the state the PSoC conditions of operation. of charge. It was also highly This was fully converted back to sensitive to voltage polarization Pb and PbO2 with a mild automatic with a small (1.63Ah) amount of maintenance charge which was

overcharge Figure 10 With adapted triggered by the interrogation pulse. test profiles (a and c) Geiss was Problem identified, problem solved — typical of the standard able to add additional charge at the end of each 12 minute cycle. we see when working with an && "

Using a regular 52 second expert such as Geiss. *&)'+!' * ' # &($

Geiss receiving his Industry Lead Award in Kuala Lumpur in 2017

THE MESSAGE Not all presentations and topics have been covered in this review due to space restrictions and for this reason other offerings, although noteworthy, are not included in this report.

However, the overall message was quite clear: lead is competing in a changing energy storage environment and is losing market share and shortly perhaps its dominance.

There are many companies, suppliers to and manufacturers of lead acid batteries, in all its forms and applications. In some cases,

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Figure 10. Narada: BESS simulation, voltage spike on battery recharge during IEC 61427-2 clause 6.2 cycle tests

work is almost certainly being duplicated with resources that would be more efficiently utilized if they were pooled and more cohesively managed.

Similarly, looking to reduce water loss in tests which are likely to be abandoned could be diluting more

relevant R&D efforts.

The winner of this year’s international lead award, Frank

Fleming, in his acceptance speech urged the industry to cooperate and pool knowledge and resources to ensure that the performance of lead acid batteries would meet the

challenges of a changing dynamic marketplace.

Historically, because battery manufacturers have jealously guarded any advantage they may have had, this has never really happened.

Well, the industry has been warned. What happens next and how successfully it will compete with the real threat of other battery technologies is in its hands.

Some wise words and good information were presented at this conference. Let’s hope they were not wasted.

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 81

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WIRTZ NEW PATENT FOR CONTROLLING THE PASTING PROCESS DELIVERS PRECISELY PASTED PLATES. AUTOMATICALLY. You may think of Wirtz as experts in grid making but we’re really the leaders in plate pasting too. We introduced the steel belt paster and received our first steel belt paster patent in 1986. We have supplied hundreds of steel belt pasting systems to the industry over the last 30 years.

Wirtz Closed Loop Automatic Caliper This programmable process maintains plate thickness during your entire plate making run. Adjustments on the fly do not interrupt production or cause line stoppages.

The Plate Pasting Process is now a Process Under Control.

Our newest innovation which received a U.S. patent allows “on the fly” thickness adjustments to the steel belt pasting machine to control the plate thickness while the machine is running. We incorporate a servo system under the steel belt which can be continuously adjusted to maintain an exact plate thickness.

The adjustments can be made by the machine operator, or in a closed loop system when coupled with a thickness measurement system.

Plate Thickness Control To Exact Tolerances. Plate Thickness can be controlled to a +/-0.001 inch or 0.025mm during production all day long. In a closed loop system, adjustments are made continuously as paste density and fluidity changes and will not interrupt production or require line stoppages. The adjustments can be made in increments as +/-0.0005 inches or 0.012mm.

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EVENT REVIEW: 6ISLC 6th International Secondary Lead Conference Bali, Indonesia • September 2-3, 2019

Secondary lead processing: ignore this subject at your peril The secondary lead industry plays a central role in the provision of materials for the battery market. The business is vast as are the range of topics that need to be looked at. Brian Wilson reports on the 6th International Secondary Lead Conference — now a must-attend for the industry.

Mark Stevenson, the chair of the ISLC, opened proceedings on Monday September 2 at 9am sharp promising there would be a range of papers and workshops covering virtually every aspect of secondary lead operations that impact not only Asia, but the global lead industry now and in the future.

Looking back, at the end of the first day, he clearly delivered on much of the promise. Andy Bush, head of the International Lead Association

chaired the first session.

Huw Roberts, director of CHR Metals, while pointing out to delegates the strength of the lead battery market in Asia and globally, was quick to highlight the fact that the lead consumption figures were undoubtedly an underestimate by several thousand tonnes. This is because calculations for lead consumption, based on end usage, shows that more lead is consumed than officially recorded This leads to the conclusion that a significant amount of lead is recycled in the informal sector and is still finding its way into licensed battery manufacturers. (See figure 1.)

Indeed, the Achilles heel of the ULAB recycling sector, informal

Mark Stevenson, the chair of the ISLC, opened proceedings

Figure 1. A significant amount of lead is recycled in the informal sector and is still finding its way into licensed battery manufacturers.

84 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

operations, was in certain countries, a significant player, and at a time when the contribution of secondary lead to the global lead market has risen to about 75%.

There is no doubt that China is the dominant market for lead consumption with 42% of global production, that breaks down to 65% of primary lead and 29% of secondary lead production worldwide.

The percentage of global production has fallen over the past few years from about 50%, mainly due to changes in e-bike legislation that has imposed speed and weight restrictions on new sales.

This has led to a decline in e-bike sales and undoubtedly the e-bike

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EVENT REVIEW: 6ISLC boom has peaked.

Nevertheless, Dong Li, the chairman of Leoch Batteries, explained that in his view, and the industry in China, that this was a temporary drop in lead consumption and with continued grown in vehicle ownership, lead production and consumption would certainly increase in the coming years (See figure 2).

In anticipation of the expected rise in demand, there were now 64 licensed Chinese smelters with a capacity of 9 million tonnes of lead actually, an overcapacity. New mined primary lead sources were also being developed in Mongolia.

The lead industry is one of the most regulated in the world and Steve Binks, the ILA’s regulatory director outlined to delegates the legislative program for the control and monitoring of hazardous substances being implemented in the European Union.

The reason the EU programme is relevant to Asia is that history has shown that restrictions and prohibitions introduced in Europe are often followed in North America and Asia.

Binks explained that the legislative programme also posed a threat to the lead battery market, not because the industry could not comply, but more so because users of lead batteries might be tempted to move to competing battery technologies to avoid any involvement with the lead industry.

Binks went on to explain that the industry in North America and Europe was preparing for the challenges ahead and that the main trade and industry associations — the ILA, EUROBAT and the BCI — would shortly be launching a major initiative on product stewardship and the environmentally sound management of the battery value chain within the circular economy.

India is one of the major consumers of lead in Asia and Pugazhenthy Lakshmanan, better known to the world as “Pug”, head of the India’s Lead and Zinc Development Association explained to delegates that the past two years had been an up-and-down period of uncertainty for the lead industry in India.

The car and motorbike manufacturing businesses had seen a downturn in sales as a consequence of the government’s promotion of a policy to move to all electric vehicles

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Shanxi, 2% Qinghai, 2%

Others, 14%

Guizhou, 2% Guangdong, 4%

Neimenggu, 33%

Guangxi, 4%

Xinjiang, 4% Yunnan, 23% Sichuan, 5% Gansu, 7%

Figure 2. China lead resource distribution

POTENTIAL NEW HYDRO-METALLURGICAL RECYCLING INTRODUCED Ola Hekselman introduced delegates to a new and innovative hydro-metallurgical ULAB recycling process using a mix of deep eutectic solvents that can recover lead from either desulfurized or non-desulfurized paste.

This cuts out a key process in the traditional recycling process.

Hekselman emphasized that the process was in the early stages of development and the university was looking for industry partners.

Hekselman, has formed a venture firm called Solveteq which aims to replace smelting with these eutectic solvents. These are environmentally friendly, benign chemicals, and allow lead to be recovered at much lower temperatures than smelting.

Ola Hekselman, a research associate with Imperial College, London

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 85

EVENT REVIEW: 6ISLC by 2030 in an attempt to reduce dependency on imported fossil fuel.

However, the vehicle manufacturing companies then lobbied the government to explain how difficult it would it would be to introduce the necessary infrastructure to support an all electric system in a country the size of India with vehicles that had a range of only 400 kilometres at most.

Realising the enormity of the task ahead and the expense, the government has recently amended the policy to one of co-existence between the EV and gasoline vehicles.

On a more positive note, Pug also outlined the government’s extensive green energy program that will certainly create a huge demand for lead battery storage banks.

It was obvious from the reaction of the delegates that nobody in the plenary realized how much lead could be recovered from furnace residues and discarded by-products, and not only from the lead industry, but from dusts produced and dumped by the steel, zinc and copper industries as well.

Juergen Antrekowitsch, an associate professor from the University of Leobon told delegates that his

research and the processes developed at the university had led him to the conclusion that annually as much as 500,000 tonnes of lead could be recovered economically from steel dust and about 400,000 tonnes from zinc residues, that is, approximately 2% of global lead production and the cost, just $20 per tonne. No doubt, this presentation will be of interest to recyclers.

Athan Fox, chief technology and innovations officer with Aurelius Environmental, gave delegates an update on recent developments in the promotion and adoption of the company’s hydro-metallurgical ULAB recovery process.

Indeed, the company and the process have moved on and with a demonstration project in South Africa and other developments in South America and the UK, the company was now able to provide estimates for capital investment and running costs, that would appear, on the face of it, to be competitive with traditional pyro-metallurgical processes — but without the emission issues. Of particular interest to integrated companies, was the suggestion that the production of

KEEPING LEAD FROM THE PLANT OUT OF THE HOME Personal hygiene has for a long time been a key issue when considering measures necessary to control occupational lead exposure and Dan Askin, president of ESCA Tech, presented an illustrated series of slides demonstrating how important it is that worker’s clothing does not become contaminated.

Most importantly it was to ensure that workers and contractors do not take home any lead dust on

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their clothes or shoes, or phone.

Askin made an interesting correlation between higher lead exposure and higher employee turn-over rates which increased lead exposure further.

Perhaps strangely enough the key to low blood levels is frequently more about common sense rather than high-tech systems, though these obviously have their place.

fine grain lead oxides would increase charge capacity.

As every furnace operator knows, one of the most important requirements for continuous production is the refractories and Herman Wijaya Santoso, sales manager from Harbison Walker International, explained how the various blends of refractory materials affected their resistance to corrosion, thermal wear and shock and ultimately, long maintenance free life.

The afternoon session opened with a technical workshop presented

by Sander Arnout, the managing director of InsPyro. This workshop, a follow-up to the session at the previous secondary lead conference two years in Kuala Lumpur, was based on the thermodynamics of the pyro-metallurgical recycling process.

Sander told delegates how to maximize the recovery of lead from ULAB using the Gibbs Energy Mathematical Framework, in conjunction with the Ellingham and Yazawa diagrams.

Sander also explained how the recycling process could be controlled by following the sulfur removal and structuring the slag produced.

The afternoon session continued with a presentation by Ola Hekselman, a research associate with Imperial College, London (see boxed item on page 85).

Vijay Parek, vice president with Gravita India presented delegates with the journey the company had made from being just one of many ULAB recycling companies in India to being one of the best and most respected recycling operations. Parek said this transition to a holistic approach had transformed every aspect of the business and paramount was the care of employees and the environment.

Furthermore, having achieved recognition by the ILA for the progress made in the management of occupational health, safety and the environment, the company had now embarked on a program to bring all the company operations around the world up to the same standard and comparable with best global practice.

This was followed by a presentation from Dan Askin, president of ESCA Tech (see boxed item left) The first day’s session closed with a presentation by Genaro Guinto, a combustion applications engineer

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 87

EVENT REVIEW: 6ISLC with Air Liquide. Guinto explained that oxygen enrichment of the burner systems for furnace operations reduces fuel consumption, but has significant environmental benefits, because NOx gases are reduced to virtually zero and CO2 by about 60%.

Furthermore, oxygen enrichment burners can be supplied to suit all fuel supplies, from natural gas to reclaimed fuel oil.

In the evening, delegates were entertained with a traditional Indonesian meal on the beach. It was a successful end to a highly successful day.

Day 2 The first session of the second day of the Secondary Lead Conference was focused on production. The first speaker, Masssimo Sbrosi, from Engitec Technologies, presented to the delegates the range of processes that Engitec offer to the secondary lead

industry, including their CX process that now includes a top of the range battery breaker capable of consuming up to 40 tonnes per hour and a tilting rotary furnace.

For many years, since the introduction of ABS battery cases, used mainly for e-bike and security batteries, has caused separation issues with polypropylene, but Sbrosi informed delegates that they can now offer all their breakers with the ability to separate polypropylene and ABS plastics.

Jarosite residues produced during zinc hydrometallurgy are considered a hazardous waste because they contain heavy metals such as Zn and Pb. However, Jarosite residues can also contain significant amounts of silver and copper. Estimates as to the value of the metals dumped annually are put at a staggering $2 billion to $3 billion.

Economic recovery of these metals in an environmentally sound process was now possible according to Gustav Hanke, a project manager from the

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88 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

University of Leoben. According to Hanke, it is entirely possible, following flotation, palletization and calicination of the Jarosite, to separate fractions containing zinc oxide, as an off gas stream; the lead, copper and silver in the metal bath and the iron is then referred to the slag.

Recovering the individual metals from the mix in the bath can then be performed in the traditional way.

The management of ventilation and filtration systems is paramount to maintaining a clean working environment, but up to now had not featured in any of the ISLC conferences.

So, the presentation by John Fields, the vice president of Nederman MikroPul, was a most welcome addition to the program. Indeed, one of the first points Fields made was that the design of the filtration systems is critical and has to take into account fact that lead dust has characteristics that make it more difficult to capture and that regular monitoring and effective maintenance is essential for the filtration system to function properly. (See figure 3 opposite.)

Fields also emphasized how important it is to integrate the filtration systems into the plant design and layout and not regard the baghouse as a box you add on after the furnaces are installed.

To underline the importance of monitoring filtration performance, Fields introduced the delegates to the latest digital monitoring technology available with all baghouses to provide up to the minute performance data.

Making a first appearance at the ISLC was Desiree MontelcilloNarvaez, the head of the UNEP Global Initiative on lead Risk Reduction.

Montelcillo-Narvaez informed delegates that her mandate given to UNEP by the UN Environment Program was to eliminate the use of lead in paint and pigments and to promote and develop the environmentally sound and sustainable recycling of ULAB with a focus on developing countries and those in economic transition.

Montelcillo-Narvaez said the UNEP program was not being implemented in isolation and was working with the ILA, Pure Earth, academia, WHO, the Global Battery Alliance.

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EVENT REVIEW: 6ISLC Montelcillo-Narvaez said that in collaboration with the Basel Convention Secretariat, two pilot programs were being implemented with one in central and South America in Ecuador and Honduras and the second in Asia, in Bangladesh.

Montelcillo-Narvaez told delegates that the ISLC had given her the opportunity to meet some of the project partners she will be working with in Honduras, and Bangladesh.

The host country, Indonesia also has an active lead risk reduction program with the government supporting the UNEP initiative and working with Pure Earth to remediate contaminated sites and the ILA and the Basel Secretariat to update guidelines for the environmentally sound management of ULAB. Budi Susilorini, the Pure Earth Country Coordinator for Indonesia, outlined the remediation projects completed in Indonesia, but also emphasized that Pure Earth are also active across Asia, in particular, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, India and more recently, Bangladesh, in Kathgora.

While the industry is aware of the positive impact that the abolition of leaded gasoline has had on the population’s lead in blood levels, recent studies by Pure Earth and partners had revealed a disturbing increase in lead in blood levels among the general population in certain Asian countries and this trend may be attributed to informal ULAB recycling.

George Gatlin, the CEO of INVEMA in Honduras, addressed the committee to thank them for such a comprehensive program about the environmentally sound recycling of ULAB. Gatlin admitted that at the time he knew nothing about recycling ULAB, but now at the sixth ISLC he made a welcome return, not as a delegate, but as a speaker.

Starting from a brownfield site over the past four years Gatlin, with assistance from a partner in Ecuador, Fundametz and the ILA, has designed and built a ULAB recycling plant that conforms to national legislation and international norms for emissions and discharges.

The Honduras government has been so impressed that it has banned the export of ULAB to ensure that all the ULAB are recycled domestically.

One huge problem for the lead battery as a whole is the presence of

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the informal recycling sector, where illegally batteries are scrapped for their Elimination of the informal sector is therefore vital if responsible recyclers are to free themselves from the shadow of the environmental

blight generated by the backyard operations. (Figure 4 below).

My presentation, detailing a series of measures and actions that can and should be taken by the industry and governments that will either eliminate the informal sector or

Figure 3. One of the first points Fields made was that the design of the filtration systems is critical and has to take into account fact that lead dust has characteristics that make it more difficult to capture

Figure 4. Elimination of the informal sector is vital if responsible recyclers are

to free themselves from the shadow of the environmental blight

Figure 5: Managing health and safety can be helped with thought-out design

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 89

EVENT REVIEW: 6ISLC bring them into the formal licensed and responsible sector was therefore well received by the delegates, and especially the lead industry, NGOs and UNEP. Managing the health, safety and environmental impacts of ULAB recycling (Figure 5 on page 89) is not the only lead risk management essential to the sustainability of an operating plant, management of the financial risk, especially in a price fluctuating market is critical.

At the previous ISLC in Kuala Lumpur Edric Koh, the head of corporate sales for the LME Asian office, conducted a lead hedging workshop, but of course hedging, albeit of importance, is not the only financial instrument that is available to provide improved security.

Indeed, longer term planning and the financial security associated with such forecasting might be better served by the futures market because

it enables a greater degree of price flexibility that is beneficial to the recycler and also the customer who may want to fix the lead price when an order is placed.

Wirtz Manufacturing has been a supporter and contributor to the ISLC since the first conference in Macau. This year Robert Wirtz, the company’s director or engineering, introduced the company’s new range of ULAB recycling equipment, that includes a redesigned breaker that is capable of handling the heavy duty and solar energy storage batteries.

One of other benefits of the new design is the ease of maintenance and the optimization of the hammers in the breaker, this, together with the ability of the hydro-gravitational separator to distinguish between ABS and polypropylene plastics brings the breaker right up to date with the recycling requirements.

However, the most interesting new

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90 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

production was the Fully Assembled Skid Mounted System for breaking ULAB that is delivered on site in a standard shipping container and as soon as it is offloaded, connected to water and power, it is ready to break ULAB. Normally, Wirtz said, from the time the trailer arrives on site to the moment the first ULAB is broken is 24 hours.

Representing those companies in the Middle East involved in the recycling of ULAB, was Salam Al Sharif, from Sharif Metals who spoke about the importance of the circular economy and lead batteries’ closed loop approach which differentiated itself from other products.

The final session of the ISLC was a participative occupational exposure and health workshop held by Steve Binks and myself on behalf of the ILA. This workshop session shared with the delegates the measures and practices adopted and implemented

by ILA members to reduce occupational exposure to the ILA’s target for lead workers of 25 µg/dl.

Opening the session, Binks shared case studies that demonstrated a measured and monitored step-bystep approach to reducing lead exposure in the workplace.

After that we outlined the various recycling plant design requirements necessary to minimize occupational exposure. During this session, interventions were invited from the delegates so that they could also share their experiences with the delegates.

Armed with the know-how for best and effective control of occupational exposure the delegates were then taken through an elevated lead in blood case study, by myself that involved investigating the underlying reasons for high exposure among shift workers. To the credit of the delegates, they collectively identified the problem and came up with a number of solutions to resolve the issue.

The final participative session of the workshop led by Binks involved an examination of the good and poor personal behaviours associated with hygiene, the use and application of PPE and lead exposure.

Without exception, feedback showed that every delegate left the workshop with at least one positive objective that would be implemented in their own place of work.

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EVENT REVIEW: THE BATTERY SHOW The Battery Show and Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Novi, Detroit, US • September 10-12, 2019

The creation of a conference legend Is there any end to the rise and rise of the annual Battery Show and Expo? With attendances and exhibitors up by some 20%, it has again proved to be an outstanding landmark in the US events calendar.

“The abomination that causes desolation.” That was the way one reviewer described the second Battery Show when it was held in Novi, a seemingly remote and endless suburb of Detroit.

But what the location lacked in ambience — and frankly there was little of it — it more than made up for in terms of substance at the show.

Everyone who was anyone wanted to be there to exhibit, to network, or to see what new products were on offer.

In those distant days, when A123 Systems would literally send dozens of engineers to see what was then the cutting edge of batteries, the future looked very bright.

And the Battery Show rode the boom as we all braced ourselves for a new age of gleaming, shiny lithium cells.

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But when the EV-related industry faltered and firms such as A123 — at one point valued at $500 million but having never made a profit — collapsed, the Battery Show continued to prosper.

The reason was simple. The EV industry, despite its setbacks, was not going to go away in a hurry. Yes, some aspects of the business were over-hyped or unsustainable, but the wave of invention and new products was poised to tap ever new energy markets and sectors.

So the Battery Show, more than any other rival exhibition or conference, provided a huge round-up of the best of cutting edge advances in (mostly) lithium batteries.

In part the location worked completely in its favour. It is not for

nothing that Detroit is nicknamed Motor City. Given the influx of foreign auto-visitors, the signs in Detroit Metropolitan Airport are in Japanese as well as in English.

Announcements are also made in Mandarin.

The first location of the Battery Show in California was flawed.

Although the new generation of

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EVENT REVIEW: THE BATTERY SHOW lithium battery providers was often based in the shadow of Silicon Valley, it was the auto-makers of Michigan that needed to attend the show.

The desolation of the venue has changed and continues to change.

When once delegates at the event would queue endlessly in line for a hot dog, within a couple of years a separate dining area was created.

The addition of the Hyatt hotel to the exhibition hall added a huge fillip to the international attendees that wanted to exhibit and needed to be close to the venue.

The latest additions to the venue are the Diamond Banquet and Conference Center, which despite describing itself as ‘elegantly appointed’, has taken

the venue into the world of opulence and memorable catering. Or more specifically, memorable catering for the best of reasons.

This year the show proved to be yet another record breaker. The organizers said they welcomed more than 700 suppliers displaying products and services from every continent; 150 expert speakers; and 9,000 attendees made up of buyers and conference delegates from more than 50 countries.

Reflecting the steady rise of hybrid and electric vehicles’ mainstream adoption, the show has continued to see year-on-year growth with 2019 up 20% from the year before.

The mood of the show was summed

The first location of the Battery Show in California was flawed. Although the new generation of lithium battery providers was often based in the shadow of Silicon Valley, it was the auto-makers of Michigan that needed to attend the show.

up by Ed Begley Jr, the famous actor and vocal environmentalist: “What I see out there on the showroom floor is so good for us, good for climate change, good for our pocketbook.”

The showroom floor displayed a variety of technologies, including computer simulation software, battery test systems, connectors and cabling, battery packaging and venting systems, motors and controllers, chargers, battery cells and packs, and more.

Additional keynote presentations were given by automakers Bob Taenaka, senior technical leader, Electrified Vehicle Battery Cells/ Systems, Ford Motor Company, and Mark Verbrugge, director, Chemical and Materials Systems Laboratory, General Motors — each of whom touched on how carmakers will deliver on customers’ electric vehicle demands.

The Leaders’ Roundtables, which followed the daily keynote presentations, proved to be of interest to conference delegates, who learned about leadership views on the need for electric vehicle infrastructure and solid-state battery feasibility, and when automakers can expect to see a profit on electric vehicle sales.

Other session topics included how to qualify a lithium-ion cell, nextgeneration batteries, battery safety and the off-road electric vehicle market.

The conference organizers said: “By all measures, the show met and exceeded expectations in terms of number and breadth of exhibitor participation and growth of professional attendance, reinforcing itself as North America’s largest and most comprehensive advanced battery manufacturing trade show.

“Add to that the remarkable technologies displayed across the showroom floor and 70+ hours of unparalleled industry education presented in the Open Tech Forum, it was hard to leave without some amount of elevated optimism towards the future.”

Following its continued interest and growth, the show is poised for additional expansion in the year ahead.

The Battery Show and Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo 2020 is next on September 15-17, in Novi’s Suburban Collection Showplace.

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EVENT REVIEW: ICBR 2019 International Congress for Battery Recycling Lyon, France • September 26-29, 2019

The rise and rise of the battery recycling business Organizers of ICBR 2019 — the annual conference on battery recycling and now in its 24th year — announced a record number 320 participants had attended this year’s industry meeting in Lyon, France.

Many well-known manufacturers, including Renault, Ford, Duracell, Saft, Nissan, Apple, Toyota, Honda, Volvo, FDK Corporation, Volkswagen, Robert Bosch and Fiat Chrysler, were at the show.

“The broad spectrum of participants shows the growing interest in battery recycling — not only from the recycling sector itself, but also increasingly from various industries,” said Jean-Pol Wiaux, chairman of the ICBR steering committee.

This year’s ICBR consisted of 30 presentations, two panel discussions and a workshop. There were also two plant tours to SNAM and MTB Recycling.

The congress was opened by Ghislain Lescuyer, CEO of French battery manufacturer Saft. Ina Lescuyer pre-conference interview he reckoned that he did not expect that second-life applications for lithium batteries would not “grow beyond limited niche markets… Batteries are designed for a specific set of operational parameters for which they excel. Any repurposing of a battery for a different application by nature means a less good fit.”

The keynote speech by Jean-Denis Curt, recycling and circular economy unit manager at car manufacturer Renault, described how recycling management is implemented at Renault and what the goals are.

The latest figures and trends on the lithium battery market, presented

by Christophe Pillot, director of AVICENNE Energy, were also eagerly awaited. Pillot has one of the sturdiest reputations in predicting the advanced battery market.

Other papers dealt with aspects of transport and safety as well as the availability of critical raw materials.

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George Kerchner, executive director of the rechargeable battery association PRBA, presented the complexities of transporting new, refurbished and waste lithium batteries. A host of new rules is coming into play.

Stéphane Bourg from the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission spoke about the raw materials required for the strategic EU industrial value chain for batteries.

Bernd Friedrich, professor of the IME Process Metallurgy and Metal Recycling Institute at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, presented on the impact of process chain design on recycling efficiency with simulation and practical results.

Renata Arsenault, a senior researcher for the Energy Storage Research Group at Ford, spoke about the OEM perspective on battery recycling in the new mobility era.

This year the conference participants were invited to the Networking Dinner at the famous restaurant L’Abbaye founded by star chef Paul Bocuse.

Another aspect of the ICBR annual congress has been its occasional survey of its participants’ views on business. According to this year’s survey — Industry Barometer ICBR 2019 — 58% expect general economic conditions for the battery recycling industry to improve over the next two years. One in four expects business to remain at a stable level. Only 18% of respondents expect business to slow down.

The survey was conducted among participants of the annual ICBR industry meeting by the ICBR Steering Committee.

The results provide a meaningful insight into current opinions prevailing in the sector.

Participants were asked to assess the current business situation in terms of volume and profitability.

Just 16% said they were dissatisfied with the current business situation,

the rest saw no change compared to the previous year or better prospects.

A similarly positive picture emerges in the assessment of current volume trends: around 68% of respondents say that volumes are developing positively and the balance said there had been no change in volumes compared to the previous two The quantity of waste batteries handled by sorting, dismantling or recycling facilities is growing but the downward pressure on profitability appears to be increasing. Factors highlighted in the survey include fluctuations in the price of active materials recovered from batteries, based on prices quoted on the London Metal Exchange.

An additional challenge is seen as the financing of battery returns, when necessary. Furthermore, some sector representatives expect the composition of batteries to continue to change, thus adversely influencing the cost of collecting, transporting and recycling materials.

Another issue for the sector is the different legal frameworks that apply from country to country.

This aspect is relevant in terms of battery recycling, and also with in the harmonization of definitions and objectives between the Battery Directive, the Waste Framework Directive and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive.

It is also seen as a challenge to raise awareness in such a way that the collection of consumer batteries, as well as small industrial batteries, produces the desired results.

“The success of a transition from a linear approach to a circular economy requires improvements at the level of coherence and harmonization within the European Legislative and Regulatory frameworks impacting the Battery Recycling Industry,” said Jean-Pol Wiaux, head of the ICBR steering committee.

ICBR 2020 will be held in Salzburg, Austria on September 16-18, 2020.

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EVENT REVIEW: IFBF International Flow Battery Forum • Lyon, France • July 9-11, 2019

Challenges ahead as flow battery commercialization struggles to push onward Europe may be carbon neutral by 2050 but questions over the related issue — energy storage — shouldn’t be phrased over whether storage will grow, so much as how fast. And how will flow batteries fit into this picture?

This was the theme of one of the opening keynote addresses by Patrick Clerens, secretary general of the European Association for the Storage of Energy, at this year’s International Flow Battery Forum.

There should be clean energy for all Europeans. In all scenarios for energy envisaged by the EU, batteries play a major role. “So,” said Clerens, “the question is not ‘Will storage grow?’ but ‘How fast will it grow?’ We need to scale up batteries to meet those needs.”

As Clerens points out, there is no harmonized regulatory framework for storage. The business case for storage is complex and, together with a lack of long-term revenue certainty, the knock-on effect tends to inhibit investment in storage projects. That said there is a great opportunity for big storage, and that means technologies such as flow batteries have an important part to play.

The following panel session included numerous uplifting statements on the opportunities for flow batteries and,

for a brief moment, all seemed well.

Andy Klassen, CTO of Avalon Battery, opened by revealing that his firm had delivered 130 identical systems and, working with Next Tracker, they saw great opportunities to deliver winning projects for solar and storage. Solar and storage is a popular business theme — reinforced

by Shin Han, founder and CEO of H2 Inc from Korea.

There is also no shortage of willingness to invest in flow battery manufacturing — Redflow of Australia has just commissioned its manufacturing plant in Thailand and is optimistic about opening up new markets in the telecoms sector.

Many people think immediately of vanadium when flow batteries are discussed, and obviously vanadium is a big sector in the flow battery industry. In all over the three days of

The company is moving its marketing focus away from only long duration applications, with sales targets towards high cycling applications, where the lack of degradation was showing a competitive advantage.

Thorsten Seipp, a co-founder of Volterion

Patrick Clerens, secretary general of the European Association for the Storage of Energy

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the meeting, some 23 papers looked at various aspects of VRFB. In a possible trend for the future in China, VRB Energy Inc, based in Beijing, discussed 100 MWh-scale vanadium flow battery projects in China and forthcoming utility-scale deployment.

Schmid Energy Systems of Germany has been quietly working on developing its manufacturing capability for vanadium flow batteries and has recently agreed to build a vanadium flow battery giga factory in Saudi Arabia.

With demand for integrating renewable electricity in the Middle East, it’s a logical location for a new-build factory. It’s a good boost for those in the vanadium sector — and there is no shortage of mining companies who would love to increase their sales of vanadium.

But will the purchasers buy flow

Michael Aziz, a professor at Harvard University

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EVENT REVIEW: IFBF

ACHIEVING A COMMERCIAL REALITY Behind all the scientific work, it is obvious that there is a clear direction of travel to reduce the costs of energy storage. The target is not just to match the headline figures of competing systems, but to push the cost boundary to the limit and to deliver low cost storage.

In previous years’ conferences participants have concentrated on achieving a low cost product. But this year, with the continual fall in lithium ion pricing and a variable commodity cost for vanadium electrolyte, discussions are moving away from just selling at low cost to the development of clear and persuasive arguments about safety, reliability and consistent performance.

It’s becoming clear that the technical benefits of flow batteries can provide a low-cost solution to the energy storage problem.

But it is less clear how that is turned into a commercial reality, with few solid business cases that demonstrate attractive rates of return to make investment in storage systems with the capability of delivering power over timespans of two to 10 or even 20 hours viable.

The challenges are clear. As a worldwide society we need huge amounts of intraday energy storage and significant seasonal balancing.

The industry needs to talk about ownership, harmonization, implementation and long-term revenue streams.

Fortunately for the flow battery industry, there are potential purchasers waiting for the right moment, when the need for low cost, long duration storage becomes a priority. The challenge is for the flow battery manufacturers and developers to be able to stay in business until that moment arrives.

We have been there before. Just trying to get batteries accepted as part of the power industry took more than 20 years, so most are just being patient.

But until buyers and sellers of storage — and that means investors, governments, power companies, private and public industry — understand the full impacts of the energy trilemma and the real need for efficient and low cost storage we need to be prepared to remain optimistic for a year or two longer.

With the continual fall in lithium ion pricing and a variable commodity cost for vanadium electrolyte, discussions are moving away from just selling at low cost, to the development of clear and persuasive arguments about safety, reliability and consistent performance.

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batteries when the predominant flavour is lithium ion?

Several themes need to be discussed, and there are no simple answers. The first point is to identify the purchasers of battery electricity storage.

Here the international dimension of the IFBF came through, with comments, quite sharp at times, showing the differences in opinion between those used to a traditional electrical utility structure and those from areas that had more fully embraced deregulation.

Some of the suppliers of materials and components have a different perspective from the battery manufacturers on the end purchasers of batteries.

Several comments suggested that the utilities need to be told to buy flow batteries, which contrasted strongly with the experience of those in other countries, where investment was made from private funds and rates of return were the main priority. Clearly, there is not a global homogenous market for any form of energy storage.

Presentations explaining the business case for battery storage in Mexico, Russia, Korea and Japan showed how the market for flow batteries changes across the world.

In many instances, the growth of storage has been high when there has been a supportive government policy towards the sector. Indeed, the two niche market assessments covering specific opportunities in Mexico and Russia, presented by Joep Pijpers for the National Institute for Electricity and Clean Energy in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Andrei Usenko, representing Inenergy and the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics RAS, Chernogolovka, Russia, illustrated the overlaps between government policy on renewable energy, the need for cheap energy and the importance of financial analysis.

In South Korea, government policy is pushing energy storage as an integral part of the national energy plan.

Thorsten Seipp, a co-founder of Volterion, explained that the company is moving its marketing focus away from only long duration applications, with sales targets towards high cycling applications, where the lack of degradation was showing a competitive advantage.

Sumitomo, which developed a flow battery in the first phase of vanadium flow battery development almost 30

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EVENT REVIEW: IFBF years ago, has demonstrated largescale projects in California and Japan.

RedT is continuing to make sales of their flow machines worldwide.

Further themes

The second theme of the conference was a debate over the merits and advantages of flow systems and lithium ion; what could be learned from safety issues (particularly fire) and what did the rest of the world need to know about the lifetime of flow batteries?

With greater experience of lithium ion operation, owners and operators are reporting on the true costs of battery ownership — including heating and cooling and accounting for degradation.

There is a strong marketing message from the flow battery manufacturers.

One delegate said it should be: “Buy my battery and work it hard. Give it as many hard cycles as you like, it can take it. And that’s important, if the battery has a long life, its whole life cost comes down. The electrolytes can be recovered and re-used, retaining their value.”

And that opens another area: how much do the electrolytes cost in the first place? Several groups are working on ways to cut the initial capital cost. Vanadium is not particularly expensive, but it has a volatile price, depending highly on the main market for its use in steel making.

Recent price spikes inhibited sales of vanadium flow batteries, but prices seem to have settled once more.

Mikhail Nikomorov, co-founder of Bushveld, believed that over time the manufacturing cost of batteries will reduce, but not the cost of the raw materials.

New business models, including leasing electrolytes and forming special purpose companies to own the electrolytes, should provide the impetus that is required to boost sales. This should increase the number of financial players in the market place, increasing volume, increasing the range and number of derivative products and increasing liquidity in the market place while at the same time allocating the risk to those who are capable of managing it.

POSTER EXHIBITION Conferences should be an opportunity for delegates to meet and discuss all aspects of the conference topic, often in a variety of formats. Now in its 10th year, the IFBF has achieved this with social events, industry visits and poster sessions. This year there were more than 30 posters covering research ideas, results and studies of flow battery science and engineering.

Some quite new ideas were presented: Simon Long Yin Tam, an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong,

and his colleagues proposed a semi-mechanical system using a cassette of zinc tape instead of a fixed electrode to increase the energy density of a flow system.

Lukas Siefert, chair of energy technology at the University Duisburg-Essen, explained his work to improve the performance of the zinc-iodide system. Ashkan Kavel, a post-grad researcher at Imperial College, presented his work on the manganese hydrogen flow battery and the benefits of low-cost electrolyte materials.

The Kemiwatt team

Other flow battery types

The IFBF programme also included presentations and discussions on other battery types; novel chemistries as well as the traditional types based on

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The sgl team on the exhibition stand

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 97

EVENT REVIEW: IFBF zinc bromine and hydrogen bromide.

Several years ago, the first organic flow batteries were discussed, and this year they arrived. In the preconference visit to IFP Energies Nouvelles (IFPEN), delegates had the opportunity to see an organic flow battery developed by Kemiwatt, a new French flow battery manufacturer.

The Kemiwatt team had delivered the battery to site from their works in Rennes just the week before the visit.

The conference included a specific session on organic flow batteries, which was opened with a keynote presentation from Michael Aziz, a professor at Harvard University.

Aziz combined economic modelling of the lifetime costs of battery operation with his scientific and engineering approach to organic electrolyte chemistries. Although some organic electrolytes are subject to degradation in operation, getting the cost right in the first place gives a great financial advantage in reducing the overall lifetime cost of storage.

Electrolyte lifetime can be increased by adding side arms to the benzene rings, and this has a strong positive effect on improving the replacement cost ratio for the electrolyte.

In the same session, the conference heard from Fathima Fasmin, postdoctoral researcher of the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, and the progress in their project to demonstrate the use of slurry electrodes for quinone-based aqueous flow battery systems.

Other work in quinone systems is proceeding at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague,

In terms of commercialization, Jena Batteries believes that organic systems are nearly there; commercial products should be available in 2021. as well as at EPFL, Switzerland and at IFPEN in France.

Later, Olaf Conrad, managing director of Jena Batteries, explained the role of organic flow batteries in the EnergyKeeper project. Jena Batteries has deployed a 30kW, 100kWh battery in the test centre in the Netherlands, as part of a demonstration to test the operation and economics of a microgrid.

This type of demonstration takes flow battery operation through the steps of scientific display, engineering construction and into deployment and real-world operation.

The panel session was lively, with more questions than answers. The opening question was direct: what needed to be done to move from vanadium-based systems to organic systems? The feeling from the panel members was that the transition was not a big deal.

Conrad believed the hard work had already been done. The end product of an organic system looks very much like a vanadium system, but some of the intervening steps are not quite as easy.

The choice of membrane is critical.

Michael Aziz felt that it was a question of optimizing components for the choice of electrolytes. If organic systems tend to operate in weak alkaline solutions, components from

Presentations explaining the business case for battery storage in Mexico, Russia, Korea and Japan showed how the market for flow batteries has changed across the world.

vanadium systems, which operate in acidic environments, might not be the most suitable.

Nevertheless, in terms of commercialization, Jena Batteries believed that organic systems are nearly there; commercial products should be available in 2021.

David Pasquier, energy storage manager at IFPEN, said the stability of the organic electrolytes is a remaining issue but the market for energy storage is huge and if chemists are able to address the synthesis of the electrolytes at scale, then large scale organic flow batteries could be achieved.

Some issues remain, such as the need to address compliance with the REACH legislation. REACH — Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals — is a European Union regulation dating from 2006 that addresses the production and use of chemical substances and their potential impacts on both human health and the environment.

Jena Batteries already has a process of complying with the legislation underway, but the regulations are onerous, and have a disproportional impact on smaller manufacturers with smaller quantities of materials.

Some of the speakers addressed the process of commercializing organic flow batteries, covering the role of venture investors and the importance of universities passing on the commercialization process to others in the industry.

Aziz referred to his preference for non-exclusive licensing as a means to moving quickly. He would like the industry to create the demand and put manufacturing systems into production, commenting that this is a faster development route than spinning out new companies. He pointed out that organic batteries need to be inexpensive if they are to be commercial, and they have this potential.

The next meeting for the International Flow Battery Forum will be held in Düsseldorf, Germany from June 30-July 2, 2020

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS International Battery Production Conference (IBPC) November 4-6 Braunschweig, Germany Join us for the second International Battery Production Conference (IBPC) in Braunschweig.

The Battery Lab Factory Braunschweig in cooperation with the VDMA Battery Production, the German competence cluster ProZell and Fraunhofer IST invites you to share and discuss your research and innovations in battery production.

Contact Tel: +49 531 391-7154 Email: info@battery-production-conference.de www.battery-production-conference.de

Energy Storage North America November 5-7 Pasadena, California, US

Once a year, a marketplace for the Energy Storage sector is established for the entire value chain to meet, network and learn in one location over three days. Thousands of developers, energy users, utilities and policymakers will gather in Pasadena to advance the understanding and deployment of energy storage.

Contact Messe Düsseldorf North America Matt Spikehout Tel: +1 312 621 5804 Email: mspikehout@mdna.com www.esnaexpo.com

E-Waste World Conference and Expo

Energy Storage Academy — Singapore Masterclass

November 14-15 Frankfurt, Germany

November 26-27 Singapore

E-Waste World Conference & Expo is a two-day international conference and exhibition dedicated to discussing the latest recycling technology, materials recovery solutions, green electronics, sustainable materials, non-toxic substitutes, and end-of-life strategies, as well as regulatory and business models to help reduce the environmental impact of all forms of consumer and industrial e-waste.

The event will bring together globally renowned experts from consumer and industrial electronics manufacturers and suppliers, e-waste recyclers and waste management companies, recycling technology manufacturers, materials recovery experts, sustainable material and chemical suppliers, science and academia, policy-makers, NGOs, research institutions and consultants.

The Energy Storage Academy is a training division designed to enable attendees to delve deeper into solutions in smaller groups helped by an experienced professional from the field.

This masterclass will enable the audience to examine and implement storage from an economic and technical perspective. It has been designed to evaluate different energy storage technologies, identifying profitable niches for storage, and learn how to set up a business case for storage based on past experiences.

Contact Tel: +44 1483 330 018 Email: info@trans-globalevents.com www.ewaste-expo.com

The Energy Management Exhibition-EMEX

Power-Gen International

EMEX is the UK’s must-attend energy event for everyone wanting to increase their organization’s energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.

EMEX connects all commercial energy consumers with leading experts, policy makers and suppliers.

EMEX is more than just an event. It’s a platform where practitioners and experts from various backgrounds and sectors are coming together to share their knowledge and experiences from successful implementations of energy efficiency strategies.

November 19-21 New Orleans, LA. USA Power-Gen International exhibition and summit serves as a business and networking hub for electricity generators, utilities and solution-providers engaged in any or all of the multiple cross-sections of power generation.

The exhibit hall provides an interactive experience that can be personalized to connect attendees with the latest technology and innovations in the conventional and renewable electricity generation markets from around the world.

The summit and knowledge hubs deliver transformative content including disruption caused by the emergence of renewable and decentralized power, niche technologies and the latest in policy and economic trends.

Our goal isn’t to say we’re the biggest and best event in power generation today. It’s to be it-for our customers-for years to come.

Contact Dufresne Tel: +44 203 097 18 33 www.energystorageforum.com/singaporemasterclass

November 27-28 London, UK

Contact Tel: +44 208 505 7073 Email: rr@emexlondon.com www.emexlondon.com

Contact Clarion Energy Tel: +1 708 486 0734 www.power-gen.com/index.html

Pasadena

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New Orleans

London

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11th International Conference on Lead-Acid Batteries 9-12 June 2020, Golden Sands, Bulgaria

LABAT’2020

LABAT is a globally recognized scientific forum gathering leading battery experts, technologists and academic researchers from all over the world. LABAT’2020 will be held in the magnificent Golden Sands resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.

THE PROGRAM INCLUDES Technical sessions focused on the latest research achievements and developments in the field of lead-acid battery technology and operation ● Exhibition fair as perfect opportunity for promotion of new products and services ● Gaston Plante Medal presentation ceremony ● Social events for an effective professional networking ●

LABAT’2020 MAIN TOPICS ● ● ● ● ● ●

Fundamentals of Lead-Acid Battery Electrochemistry Advances in Lead Battery Technology, Manufacture and Recycling Innovations and New Materials for Lead-Acid Batteries Advanced Lead Batteries for Automotive and Energy Storage Applications Battery Management Systems, State-of-Charge, State-of-Health Modelling and Simulation of Lead-Acid Battery Systems

ORGANIZED BY

CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT

Lead-Acid Batteries Department, Institute of Electrochemistry & Energy Systems, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences www.labatscience.com

Mrs. Mariana Gerganska Secretary of LABAT’2020 gerganska@labatscience.com Tel/Fax: +359 2 8731552

IMPORTANT DATES Short Abstract submission / Reduced exhibition fee - 10% Early bird registration / Extended Abstract submission Reduced exhibition fee - 5%

30.10.2019 15.03.2020 15.03.2020

FORTHCOMING EVENTS ees India November 27-29 • Bangalore, India

The market potential for electrical energy storage in India is expected to be tremendous in the future-especially driven by incoming policies for the e-mobility industry.

With the great success and support of ees Europe, Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage, ees India becomes the most powerful energy storage exhibition in India.

The exhibition is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary

electrical energy storage solutions.

Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies-from components and production to specific user applications.

Contact Solar Promotion International Ludmilla Feth Tel: +49 7231 58598 215 Email: feth@solarparomotion.com www.intersolar.in/en/for-visitors/aboutintersolar-india/focus-energy-storage.html

International Conference on Lead and Lead Batteries –Energy Storage, E- mobility & Environment December 2-3 • Mumbai, India

The lead acid battery — the product as well as the industry — is facing a challenging moment in its history.

In the past the lead acid battery market has faced similar challenges but this time the threats are real. Electric mobility and energy storage are picking up momentum all over the world and in India too.

At the same time India, by and large, is a price-sensitive market and the population has a very rich, proven experience, in using the most affordable lead acid batteries, in various applications all these decades.

To take stock of the current situation and to prepare stakeholders of the

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lead battery industry for the future by arriving at meaningful recommendations and strategies, short term as well as long term the India Lead Zinc Development Association (ILZDA) and its affiliate body Battery Society of India (BSI) will be holding an “International Conference on Lead and Lead Batteries–Energy Storage, E- mobility & Environment” in association with various sponsors, supporters and media partners.

Contact India Lead Zinc Development Association Tel: +91 11 2605 7360 info@ ilzda.com www.ilzda.com/index.php

The event will focus on: lead and its production, technological developments in lead acid battery manufacture, emerging scenarios, new additives, alloys, battery life performance, testing, existing and new markets (electric vehicles and renewable energy), quality assurance, sustainable development, recycling, environmental regulations and norms, occupational exposure precautions and related issues.

Technical presentations will be made by well known overseas as well as Indian experts.

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SHAPING THE FUTURE OF VEHICLE ELECTRIFICATION

12-16 JANUARY 2020, WIESBADEN, GERMANY

2020 conference Programs symPosium 1

chemistry symPosium 2

engineering

symPosium 3

lead-based symPosium 4

recycling

conference 1

hybrid & electric vehicles conference 2

sPecialty transPort evs conference 3

raw materials

Register by December 6 to

SAVE UP TO €400

AdvancedAutoBat.com/Europe

FORTHCOMING EVENTS Battery & Energy Storage UK 2019 December 4-5 Warwick, UK As the UK’s energy generation and distribution market accelerates, attention is steered towards balancing generation, supply, and demand and creating necessary storage facilities.

The integration of cross-sector and collaborative projects becomes crucial for a sustainable energy future but what are the next steps?

Battery and Energy Storage 2019 returns for its third year to unite all aspects of the ecosystem to showcase applications of the latest in battery and energy storage innovation across the transportation, energy, aerospace, transportation and industrial sectors.

Contact Email: info@iob-media.com www.bess.internetofbusiness.com

4th Edition Smart Solar PV Forum — Data Analytics and IoT December 4-5 Berlin, Germany The forum covers all aspects of big data and its impact on the solar sector as well as identifying issues and challenges and providing potential solutions. It’s a great opportunity for industry professionals to come together to exchange the ideas, explore new thinking and help shape the development of the industry.

The sessions are set up to be interactive for the attendees to get involved in the experience-sharing process and to tackle existing problems in real-time discussions. Use your chance to get the most out of the great benchmarking, networking and business opportunities!

Contact BIS Group Tel: +420 270 005 478 Email: info@bisgrp.com www.bisgrp.com/event/smart-solar-pv-forumdata-analytics-and-iot-4th-edition

CTI Symposia Germany December 9-12 Berlin, Germany The International CTI (Car Training Institute) Symposium and its flanking specialist exhibition is the international industry event in Europe for people seeking the latest information on developments in automotive transmissions and drives for passenger cars and commercial vehicles!

Contact Tel: +49 211 88743-43333 Email: info@car-training-institute.com www.drivetrain-symposium.world/de

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Battery India January 10-12 Karnataka, India

Advanced Automotive Battery Conference Europe (AABC) January 12-16 Wiesbaden, Germany

Battery and Recycling Foundation International, specialists in Battery Technology and Recycling of used batteries at New Delhi, India is pleased to announce Battery India-2020.

Battery India will bring together from all of the world leading battery manufacturers interested in technology and business cooperation, battery equipment and component manufacturers, experts in waste management and in environmentally sound technologies for the recycling of batteries.

Battery India 2020 will ensure a direct opportunity towards international co-operation and business promotion by ensuring quality lectures by eminent specialists and researchers, buyer & seller meetings.

Contact Ajoy Raychaudhuri Battery and Recycling Foundation International Tel: +91 1129 5526 49 www.bfi.org.in

Solar, Storage & Smart Energy Expo: Northern California January 16-17 San Francisco, USA California’s aggressive renewable goals and latest policies give the Golden State even more opportunities to grow. California has set a goal of having 100% of energy come from renewable sources by 2045. In addition to this ambitious goal, California also passed a law stating that all new homes are required to install solar.

Join us this January and we’ll guide you through the policy and market changes, and set your company up to grow your business. Hear from utility, private sector, and non-profit leaders from throughout the region, alongside multiple networking opportunities designed to connect you with other solar & storage professionals.

Contact SEIA & SEPA Tel: +1 703 738 9460 www.events.solar/exponorth/

Make plans to participate in the nineteenth European AABC event where chief battery technologists from major European automakers will present their development trends and projected battery needs, and their key suppliers will share their latest offerings and roadmaps for the future.

Each year, AABC Europe brings together a global audience of battery technologists and their key suppliers for a must-attend week of development trends, breakthrough technologies and predictions of the market for years to come.

As more European nations and international automotive OEMs make their own commitment to vehicle electrification, we are excited to carry that momentum forward for 2020 and beyond.

Contact Cambridge Enertech Tel: +1 781 972 5400 www.advancedautobat.com/europe

International Conference on Advanced Batteries, Accumulators, and Fuel Cells Conference January 30-31 Dubai, UAE The conference aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of advanced batteries, accumulators and fuel cells.

The conference also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in these fields.

Contact WASET-World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology www.waset.org/advanced-batteriesaccumulators-and-fuel-cells-conference-injanuary-2020-in-dubai#

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS European PV & Energy Storage Market Briefing 2020

11th Annual NAATBatt Meeting And Conference

February 1 Düsseldorf, Germany EuPD Research is delighted to announce the 2020 edition of its flagship event European Solar & Storage Market Briefing!

Recognized as one of the most content-driven events throughout Europe, the EuPD Research family will once again reveal its brand new market data covering both solar and energy storage trends impacting the industries in the upcoming year.

By joining us, you will not only be perfectly prepared to successfully compete in the marketplace, but also get the chance to catch-up with your European industry peers in an energizing environment: • Gain a profound understanding on market forecasts, customers’ buying behaviour, product sourcing and price indices • Learn what product (features) installers and end customers are looking for in tomorrow’s marketplace • Understand the diversity of national regulatory frameworks and adapt your strategy accordingly Contact EuPD Research www.jointforces4solar.com/events/ event/12th-european-solar-storage-marketbriefing/

February 10-13 Pasadena, USA

The 11th Annual Meeting of NAATBatt International will set a new standard for meeting amenities and networking opportunities for senior executives in the North American battery industry.

NAATBatt has decided to move its 2020 meeting and conference from March to February to avoid the exceedingly busy month of March on the battery conference circuit.

Contact NAATBatt International Tel: +1 312 588 0477 Email: info@naatbatt.org www.naatbatt.org/2020conference/

Intersolar North America February 4-6 • San Diego, California USA As the first major solar + storage event of the year in North America, Intersolar North America highlights the latest energy technologies, services, companies, and organizations striving to create positive impact on climate change and support our planet’s transition into a more sustainable energy future.

Attendees get in-depth technical training, hands-on product workshops, trends, and education from top experts. Experience the solar industry’s best practices for the design, installation, and maintenance of codecompliant PV and storage systems. Tour the expo floor to review the best-in-class companies and the top solutions, services, and products for the year ahead.

Exhibitors meet thousands of solar and energy storage professionals from around the world, do business face-to-face, and network to meet new prospects and customers.

Lithium Mine to Market, Australia 2020 February 12-13 Perth, Australia The Western Australian lithium industry is dynamic and currently undergoing a period of change, in that it is transforming its traditional mining output into lithium chemical production.

New government policies are now being discussed to develop the lithium downstream industry even further.

This could represent a momentous shift for the industry, with Western Australia potentially incentivised to become a source of materials for the manufacturers of batteries and-beyond that-cell and pack manufacturing.

Roskill’s inaugural Lithium Mine to Market, Australia 2020 Conference offers you the opportunity to discover what is really happening in the lithium supply chain.

The conference will bring together a high profile list of expert speakers to offer insights and supply and market outlooks for the current situation in Australia and further afield.

It will also give you the chance to meet and network with key decision makers across the entire lithium supply chain.

Contact Roskill Tel: +44 20 8417 0087 www.roskill.com/event/lithium-mine-tomarket-australia-2020/

6th Annual Energy Storage Policy Forum February 13 Washington DC, Washington. USA Featuring nationally recognized policymakers and energy thought-leaders, the ESA Annual Policy Forum convenes a select audience of stakeholders from across the energy ecosystem - including state and federal regulators, policymakers, storage industry members, utility decision makers, and power sector stakeholders.

Contact Energy Storage Association Tel: +1 202 293-0537 www.pf.energystorage-events.org

Contact Diversified Communications Tel: +1(207) 842-5500 www.intersolar.us

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The Leading Exhibition Series for Batteries and Energy Storage Systems

NOVEMBER 27–29, 2019, BANGALORE, INDIA INDIA‘S LEADING ELECTRICAL ENERGY STORAGE EXHIBITION www.ees-india.in

FEBRUARY 4–6, 2020, SAN DIEGO, USA NORTH AMERICA‘S ULTIMATE HOT SPOT FOR ENERGY STORAGE SOLUTIONS www.ees-northamerica.com

MARCH 3–5, 2020, DUBAI, UAE EES@MIDDLE EAST ELECTRICITY: MENA‘S MOST COMPREHENSIVE ENERGY STORAGE EVENT www.ees-mena.com

JUNE 17–19, 2020, MUNICH, GERMANY EUROPE’S LARGEST EXHIBITION FOR BATTERIES AND ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS www.ees-europe.com

AUGUST 25–27, 2020, SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL SOUTH AMERICA’S HOT SPOT FOR BATTERIES AND ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS www.ees-southamerica.com

FOLLOW US

FORTHCOMING EVENTS Energy Storage Summit February 25-26 London, UK The largest UK downstream focused event addressing energy storage returns to London in February 2020. It includes four streams filled with developers, financiers, utilities, networks and aggregators discussing standalone storage, along with co-located and C&I applications.

International Zinc and Zinc Oxide Conferences February 16-19 Scottsdale, AZ. USA The 2020 International Zinc Conference is one of the premier zinc events of the year, highlighting key industry trends and challenges and providing a unique opportunity to learn about new research and market trends. Both conferences offer excellent opportunities for building business relationships and networking with colleagues. The conferences can be booked individually or as a package.

Contact International Zinc Association Tel: +1 919 361 4647 Website: www.zinc.org/2020-internationalzinc-zinc-oxide-conferences/

Contact Solar Media Tel: +44 207 871 0122 www.storagesummit.solarenergyevents.com

Resource Recycling Expo 2020 February 26-28 Tokyo, Japan A newly launched show specialising in recycling technologies & services of renewable energy resources such as solar panels and rechargeable batteries.

The 2nd Resource Recycling Expo will be held inside world’s largest-scale smart energy show-World Smart Energy Week 2020.

Contact Reed Exhibitions Japan Tel: +81-3-3349-8576 www.recycling-expo.jp/en-gb.html

Intersolar Middle East Conference March 3-5 Dubai, UAE In 2019 Intersolar teamed up with Middle East Electricity. These two leading global energy exhibitions have embarked on a partnership of on-going collaboration to co-deliver a solar event at Middle East Electricity.

The new event will build upon the already strong solar offering, with the aim of providing a platform which best serves the trends and investment opportunities in the renewable energy industry.

The Intersolar Middle East conference focuses on photovoltaics, PV production technologies, and solar thermal technologies. Since its foundation, Intersolar has become the most important industry platform for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, service providers and partners of the global solar industry.

Intersolar at Middle East Electricity is the largest gathering of solar industry professionals in the Middle East & Africa, offering the most effective tradefocused forum for international manufacturers and distributors looking to meet regional buyers.

Contact Intersolar www.intersolar.ae/en/home.html

Graphene Automotive

Electric Vehicles Battery Tech 2020 February 24-25 • Los Angeles, CA. USA Battery Tech 2020: where electric vehicle battery technology innovators will meet with leading automotive manufacturers to explore new battery technologies and battery management systems for use in next generation electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles.

Contact IQ Hub • Tel: +1 206 582 0128 www.usa.battery-technology-conference.com

March 5-6 Detroit, Michigan. USA This year’s conference is set to become the world’s leading exhibition and conference exclusively for graphene researchers and automotive manufacturers to meet and explore new uses of graphene in automotives, and to address the specific challenges associated with the commercialisation of graphene for use in a multitude of new applications.

This exhibition and conference will provide a forum for all stakeholders, from researchers and suppliers in the graphene industry, to end user manufacturers, to network and build crossmarket relationships and to discuss the latest developments in graphene use in new automotive applications.

Contact IQ Hub Email: delegates@iQ-Hub.com www.usa.graphene-automotive-conference. com

Energy Storage Europe March 10 -12 Düsseldorf, Germany Those who would like to get to know the entire world of energy storage, its leading technologies and key-figures, for those there is only one destination:

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS Interbat March 17-19 • Moscow, Russia

Düsseldorf

Energy Storage Europe in Düsseldorf.

The unrivalled focus on the topic of energy storage can only be found here in Düsseldorf. Only here the entire range of technologies in all its diversity can be discovered: Electrical, thermal, chemical and mechanical solutions. Only here the energy storage of future energy systems can already be experienced today.

Contact Messe Düsseldorf Caroline Markowski Tel: +49 211/4560 - 7281 www.energy-storage-online.com

Battery Tech Expo March 26 Northampton, UK The Battery industry is on the cusp of a power revolution with big technology companies investing heavily in the next generation of battery development and energy storage.

The event will provide a unique opportunity to showcase the latest products, technologies and services covering the Battery Management Systems, EV Battery, Battery Storage, Battery Development/ Discovery, Commercial and Mobile Power Device sectors.

Contact 10fourmedia Tel: +44 1283 815 719 Email: david.reeks@10fourmedia.co.uk www.batterytechexpo.co.uk

For the 29th consecutive year, Russia’s battery storage association — better known as INTERBAT — has brought together Russian and international battery manufacturers and suppliers to meet in this the most prestigious specialized exhibition and trade fair.

Subjects of the exhibition include: • Lead acid starter, traction & stationary batteries • Alkaline batteries • Primary batteries

• Lithium batteries • Small power supply & charges • Material, components & equipment for battery manufacturing • Battery recycling Contact International Association “INTERBAT” & National Association of Power Sources Manufacturers “RUSBAT” Tel: +7 499 248 4653 Email: interbat@interbat.ru www.interbat.ru/index-e.htm

EV Infrastructure Summit 2020 March 25-26 • London, UK The second edition of the EV Infrastructure Summit (25-26 March) will focus on the opportunities and challenges involved in establishing a UKwide charging infrastructure as part of the transition to zero emission vehicles.

By the date of the summit, it is anticipated that OLEV will have published its proposals for high power charging, which will make the event very timely.

It is also possible that the Chancellor will have delivered the Autumn State-

ment before the conference, which will include a budgetary allocation for the delivery of OLEV’s high power charging plan.

Contact City and Financial Global Tel: 020 3713 1631 www.cityandfinancialconferences.com/ events/ev-infrastructure-summit-2020/eventsummary-b0d3c5220b174f1b86d27e216 7b24287.aspx

Northampton

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS 2020 International Zinc Conference Europe March 30-April 1 Istanbul, Turkey In addition to providing an update on key market trends, including supply and demand for concentrates and metal, sustainable development, first use markets with a focus on hot dip and continuous galvanizing, innovative applications and regulatory issues, this 1.5-day conference offers excellent networking opportunities.

The conference will be complemented by an optional plant tour to a galvanizing plant.

Contact International Zinc Association Tel: +1 919 361 4647 www.zinc.org/international-zinc-conferenceeurope-2020/

30th Annual Energy Storage Association Conference & Expo April 8-10 Phoenix, Arizona. USA The 30th Annual Conference and Expo is the industry’s premiere conference and networking event. It is the most influential gathering of market leaders, customers, decision makers, and technology innovators. Attending will provide you with new strategies, new connections and innovative ideas that will move your organization forward.

Contact Energy Storage Association Tel: +1 202 293-0537 www.esacon.energystorage-events.org

CMT’s E-mobility Conference Asia

37th International Battery Seminar and Exhibit

April 23-24 Bangkok, Thailand

March 30-April 2 Orlando, Florida. USA

As demand for electric vehicles are expected to increase in Singapore, the country’s electricity and gas company SP Group plans a network of 1,000 electric vehicle chargers in Singapore by 2020.

The EV chargers are expected to be 250 high-powered direct currentzxn with a power ratings up to 350kW. The chargers will be able to support EV models with large battery capacity and longer driving range.

This event is an excellent platform to promote your organization to influential players and investors in the industry.

Founded in 1983, the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit has established itself as the premier event showcasing the state of the art of worldwide energy storage technology developments for consumer, automotive, military, and industrial applications.

Key thought leaders will assemble to not only provide broad perspectives, but also informed insights into significant advances in materials, product development, manufacturing, and application for all battery systems and enabling technologies.

As the longest-running annual battery industry event in the world, this meeting has always been the preferred venue to announce significant developments, new products, and showcase the most advanced battery technology.

Contact Cambridge Enertech Tel: +1 781 972 5400 www.internationalbatteryseminar.com

ILA calls for papers for 17ELBC in Milan

Contact Centre for Management Technology — CMT. Tel: +65 6346 9138 www.cmtevents.com/aboutevent. aspx?ev=200412

The International Lead Association and the Consortium for Battery Innovation are calling for papers to be presented at the 17th European Lead Battery Conference, to be held in Milan, Italy on September 22-25, 2020.

Themes covered next year are automotive lead batteries; energy storage systems; new developments and industry advances; and industrial, UPS and telecom applications.

Anyone wishing to present should send a title, abstract and biography to the ILA by December 1.

In co-operation with lead and lead alloy supplier EcoBat, the ILA also offers bursaries for students to attend the conference, to include registration and travel costs and an allowance for accommodation.

Applications for a bursary must be made by December 30.

For further details and information, https://17elbc.ila-lead.org

BCI Convention + Power Mart Expo April 26-28 • Las Vegas, Nevada. USA The most complete display of new technology, products and services awaits you in the Power Mart Expo!

View product demonstrations, pose questions to exhibiting experts and learn about what is new in the lead battery industry.

Contact Battery Council International Tel: +1 312 245 1074 Email: info@batterycouncil.org www.batterycouncil.org/ page/2019PostEvent

Düsseldorf

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Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 109

BATTERY HEROES: RAINER WAGNER For the past 35 years, Rainer Wagner has worked tirelessly to improve lead battery performance, develop new battery types and he has been one of the key figures in VRLA design. Kevin Desmond recounts his life and career.

A lifetime quest for a yet better battery One of the peculiarities of the lead battery business is the way that it is truly global and provincial at the same time.

And the same is true of some of the leading electrochemists in the industry.

Rainer Wagner, being both German and international in its perspective, epitomises some of the best qualities of the pioneering researchers of the industry.

Wagner was born in Gelsenkirchen, a town in the Ruhr area of Germany in January 1955. His early interest in science, particularly electronics and electrochemistry, was fuelled by his father. In 1975 he went up to study at the

relatively new University of Dortmund in North-Rhine Westphalia.

He was exceptionally fortunate from the start. His personal tutor was Hans Rickert one of the leading electrochemists of his generation and one of the most published authors in his field.

Moreover, Rickert himself had studied under Carl Wagner (no relative) who was later known as “the father of solid-state electrochemistry”. Wagner died in 1977 but is remembered by the Electrochemical Society in its annual Carl Wagner Memorial Award.

The work of Carl Wagner and Rickert made an indelible impression on

“Although the major focus of my research at that time was on silver/copper sulphides and selenides, I also found enough time to familiarise myself with the positive active material of the lead battery.”

Wagner with his team of chemists, electrochemists and process engineers at Hagen central laboratory in 1988.

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the young Rainer Wagner. “I read all the numerous papers the two had produced,” he later recalled. “I was so impressed and intrigued that I decided there and then that electrochemical research would be my profession for the rest of my life. It’s a decision I’ve never regretted.”

But it was not just research and academic achievements that mattered. In 1976 he met the love of his life Ingrid Hegemann. They were married three years later and have been together for 40 years. Rebecca, their first daughter, was born in 1982. Christina in 1984, Cornelia in 1988 and Susanne in 1990.

Two granddaughters (Lena and Sophie, twins) were born to Rebecca in 2014 and Christina gave birth to their grandson Benedikt in 2017.

After completing his diploma in 1980 he continued his research with Rickert as a scientific assistant and to obtain his PhD. His thesis, he admits, was a bit of a mouthful: Pressure dependent electrode potential measurements at galvanic cells with solid electrolyte for determination of the partial molar volume of silver in silver sulphide, silver selenide and silver telluride.” These three compounds are mixed conductors (ionic and electronic) and have a connection with lead dioxide, the positive active material of the lead battery, which is also a mixed conductor, the ionic part by oxygen and hydrogen.

Wagner went on to study this further.

“One of our research topics was lead dioxide and so, for the first time I came into contact with the lead battery,” he says. “Although the major focus of my research at that time was on silver/ copper sulphides and selenides, I also found enough time to familiarise myself with the positive active material of the lead battery.”

One important result of Rickert’s research group into lead dioxide, was the discovery that the ratio of oxygen

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BATTERY HEROES: RAINER WAGNER to lead is not exactly two-to-one but also that it contains a marked amount of hydrogen. Thus, the correct formula of the positive active material is PbO2yHz. The exact stoichiometry depends on the potential of the positive plate.

Learning such details Rainer became more and more interested in the lead battery research. However, a life in academia paled. So, when Hagen Batterien — a German battery manufacturer founded in 1910 — in Soest, just 50km east of Dortmund offered him a job, he mulled it over for a while and finally accepted.

In 1985, Wagner started work at Hagen as the head of the chemical and electrochemical central laboratory. He later was to become head of all R&D. His work involved a variety of disciplines — Hagen produced starter as well as industrial batteries at three different plants. The result was that he worked on many different types of lead batteries — from large ones used in submarines to smaller ones with only a few Ah. At Hagen he came under the influence of two key technical people — Eberhard Nann and Reiner Kießling.

“The two were central figures in accelerating my thinking about the internal processes of lead batteries,” he says.

“From both of them I learned so much about the real mechanisms within a battery. I realized that there are significant differences between the three-dimensional porous structure of the active material in batteries and the small two-dimensional samples I had investigated while at Dortmund University,” he says.

“It was a great complement to the theoretical knowledge gained at the university. I also learned that personally carrying out a strip-down analysis is useful to get a feeling what is happening inside the battery during operation in the field or testing in the lab.”

From the beginning of his work at Hagen, Wagner was involved in a project that resulted in the then-largest lead battery in the world. This was the manufacture and installation of a 14MWh battery at Bewag in Berlin for frequency regulation and spinning reserve.

One special feature of this battery was the use of copper instead of lead as the negative grid material, resulting in a lower voltage drop across the grid of the tall plates that were used for this large battery.

“I learned much from this project that would prove useful later,” he says.

“For example, in one of my later pro-

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At Hagen he came under the influence of two key technical people — Eberhard Nann and Reiner Kießling. “The two were central figures in accelerating my thinking about the internal processes of lead batteries”

At dinner after a PCL study group meeting in Montreux, Switzerland in 1994. From left to right: Ian Dyson, Ken Peters, Bob Nelson with his wife Elisabeth, Rainer Wagner and Paul Ruetschi.

THE α/β SOCIETY OF LEAD’S GREAT AND THE GOOD Wagner was appointed a member of the α/β society at the 9ELBC in Berlin in 2004. The society is an informal group of members who have made outstanding contributions to the development of the lead acid battery system.

Since its creation in 1989 just 26 members have been appointed. Here are some of them at a dinner in Vienna during the 16ELBC (from left to right Eckhard Karden, Rainer Wagner, Allan Cooper, Pat Moseley, David Rand, Geoffrey May, Eberhard Meissner, Jürgen Garche and Jun Furukawa, the latter two with their wives).

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BATTERY HEROES: RAINER WAGNER

Wagner speaking at the 5ELBC in Barcelona in 1996.

Gertrud Moll-Möhrstedt with Rainer Wagner at the MOLL booth of the Automechanika fair in Frankfurt in 2008.

After much research work it became clear to Wagner that PCL1 could be overcome by creating a better bonding of the positive active material to the grid. This was partly achieved by the addition of more tin and use of a higher curing temperature.

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jects I successfully combined the negative copper grid design with the gel technology resulting in maintenancefree high-power industrial battery.”

When Wagner joined Hagen, the demand for VRLA batteries was on the increase and, being fresh out of university with the latest theoretical knowledge about electrochemistry, he was immediately involved in couple of projects to develop AGM and gel batteries.

This became the foundation of much of his later work. “These were difficult times for the industry,” he says. “I had to learn that VRLA batteries — particularly AGM ones — needs extremely precise processing and is unforgiving to any mistake during manufacturing.”

Eventually Hagen was able to make reliable VRLA batteries for both industrial and automotive applications.

A related focus of Wagner’s research work was how to overcome what became called the ‘PCL1 effect.’ PCL — premature capacity loss — was a huge bugbear for VRLA battery makers at this time. PCL1 caused the appearance of non-conductive barrier layers between positive active material and the grid resulting in relatively early failure of the battery in cycling operation.

The phenomenon appeared when antimony in the positive grid alloy was replaced by calcium and therefore it was also called the antimony free effect.

After much research work it became clear to Wagner that PCL1 could be overcome by creating a better bonding of the positive active material to the grid. This was partly achieved by the addition of more tin and use of a higher curing temperature.

In 1988 Sociedad Española del Accumulador Tudor bought Hagen. This

added a larger perspective to Wagner’s life and he worked across Europe at other Tudor plants taking care of restructuring activities and product consolidations. It also brought him in contact with Francisco Trinidad, already making a name for himself, at Tudor’s research centre in Spain.

But the issue of premature capacity loss had not gone away. So-called PCL2 was another hurdle that had to be crossed. This involved the softening process of the positive active material during cycling.

“By intensive work, particularly on paste recipes, curing and formation, we as an industry were able to eventually solve this problem,” says Wagner. “And so we arrived at a new generation of valve regulated batteries with extremely high cycling performance.

“I was able to take advantage of what I learned at university about the behaviour of oxygen and hydrogen in lead dioxide. We used X-ray diffraction to observe the two modifications, α- and β- PbO2. With modern scanning electron microscopes, and several electrochemical investigation methods, it became possible to understand what was taking place with the microstructure of lead dioxide.

“It changed in a way that the contact areas became smaller and the individual lead dioxide particles lost contact to each other resulting in softening of the positive material and failure of the battery.”

In October 1994, Tudor was bought

by Exide Technologies. Wagner had moved from a medium-sized and family-owned battery producer, Hagen, to the much larger Tudor group and finally to Exide Technologies, one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world.

At Exide, he held a variety of senior positions, each for a couple of years.

This included director of the Exide R&D centre in Germany, development director for submarine batteries, development director for all AGM batteries in Europe and director of application engineering for all automotive battery business in Europe.

In 2005, Wagner went to work for his fourth and much smaller company, BAE, in a swing back from automotive to industrial batteries. At BAE, he became technical director responsible for battery production, R&D and quality management. For a certain period, its company Centurion, manufacturing lead starter batteries in Netherland was also part of the BAE group so that he never completely abandoned research

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BATTERY HEROES: RAINER WAGNER into automotive batteries.

Today, Rainer works at Akkumulatorenfabrik MOLL, a family owned battery firm in Bad Staffelstein, a small town in Bavaria. “Gertrud MollMöhrstedt in 2008 invited me to set up an international business unit at MOLL,” he says. “It was not just following in her father’s footsteps but a wonderful position to develop and fill.”

This, however, was not the end of Rainer’s research activities as in addition to his international activities, he has now teamed up with Manfred Gelbke, in charge of R&D at MOLL. MOLL has successfully developed EFB starter batteries for start-stop applications.

“Manfred developed some brilliant ideas on how to overcome problems of heavy cycling of flooded starter batteries. I remember our discussions about theoretical aspects that continued well into the late in the evenings. We were diving extremely deeply into some special secrets of lead batteries.

“Nowadays, I am steadily becoming more involved in lithium projects but without stopping the work on lead batteries.”

As part of his work, MOLL has increasingly looked to form international connections and collaborations.

In 2014 it formed a partnership with Hong Kong headquartered Chaowei Power Holdings looking at developing better start-stop batteries. Chaowei is the largest manufacturer of lead batteries for E-bikes in China. Wagner regularly visits the offices in Chiangxine and the automotive battery plant in Henan province. In 2017 MOLL announced a strategic partnership with South Africa’s Metair Group.

And the future? What’s left for him as he approaches retirement age?

“The lead battery has still massive room for further improvement,” he says. “We need higher DCA for automotive applications — that’s certainly an exciting challenge — and for the industrial battery side, further increases in cycling performance. “I see my role today as an adviser to the R&D teams of MOLL and our partners Chaowei and Metair sharing with them all my knowledge and experiences.”

Electrochemistry aside, Rainer Wagner reads widely. Aside from scientific subjects, such as cosmology, quantum physics, human brain research and physiology, he’s a fan of detective novels and has ambitions to write some of his own. He’s also fit and active: hobbies include mountain climbing, running, tennis and badminton.

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Aside from scientific subjects, such as cosmology, quantum physics, human brain research and physiology, he’s a fan of detective novels and has ambitions to write some of his own. He’s also fit and active: hobbies include mountain climbing, running, tennis and badminton.

Shaking hands with Pony Cheng, the R&D director of the automotive battery division of Chaowei after a badminton match in China.

RAINER WAGNER: FAMILY MAN “I like electrochemistry and batteries very much. However, number one has always been my family. Taking time for them has been first priority. Time and again, when I came back home from work, there’d be five women — Ingrid my wife and my four daughters —waiting at the door to see me. I have such fond memories of that time. And, nowadays, it is again an exciting time for my wife and me, seeing our grandchildren growing up.”

Rainer Wagner with his wife Ingrid at Christmas in 2018 surrounded by the four daughters Christina with grandson Benedikt, Cornelia, Susanne and Rebecca (left to right). In front of them granddaughters, the twins, Lena and Sophie.

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st video backdrop smartest and large nesian dancers, the the setting to the Traditional Indo endo of music were bly, ention and a cresc year and, quite possi this e renc seen at a lead conv confe st lead battery opening of the bigge the largest ever.

News n Conference K ts from ENTE Announcemen for huge as it reveals plans tion at doubling of produc Bitrode plant • its Indonesia • voltage tester high new reveals ’ ‘plug-and-play Wirtz launches a into fits that recycling plant er. Pages 4,5 40 foot contain Lead Award n International Fleming for his goes to Frank ution to the lifetime contrib y — a short lead battery industr and why this review of his career deserved. award is so richly Pages 6-7

an Exhibition. n Scenes From network at the Fun, dances and on — how the opening recepti good of the Asian great and the

By Mike Halls

ence tested the tations, Battery Confer day pening the presen of the opening the day waters ahead which came nce. Page 8-9 ational of the confere after the Intern ence Confer Giving — a look Secondary Lead same venue, n One Minute the three at the the scenes of behind (6ISLC) ended laid and organizers Stevenson charities ABC organizer Mark supporting. Some et to battery delegates are down the gauntl to the battery have been more up of the donors veterans to ‘step Special thanks r the next than generous, plate’ and mentory experts.

BB Battery. hat make go to Taiwan’s It’s the people generation of indust g the ABC other. what they are,” he said.

Page 12-13 new faces in Wilson for guidin them Brian ILA “We do have son ABC,” said he said, “which technical committee, Steven “Great start to — The 6th er Bush. the industry,” pose 6ISLC togeth Andy I t n r So, brough directo see.

Secondary Lead said they had see e managing is wonderful to International and who is ally pleasing to est, most divers on Tuesday the question: where of battery ‘one of the strong mmes we have “It was especi plenary speakers Conference closed tion of the ling mix of and largest progra with a compel work ed so many this next genera y. on the industr innovators going ever had’, and he welcom t recognizing the important y presentations explorers and come the greates rtium for Batter conference has omen, Conso this the chairw from?

Truly of in four to learn its first event catalysing much chairs that the for the veterans a long way since Innovation in number of female had. lead “My challenge is reports on in your ts Wilson vemen ry to share 2009. Brian ence has ever needed impro gs. ing of the indust ences and confer we look to diversify, a days of the meetin mance, includ experi both perfor your “As knowledge, sed battery er Daramic’s Pages 14, 16 mistakes, which subject we have discus new CBI memb of course your ry logy roadmap ally would then our indust — Coming often, I person for their use of the techno g its own will only streng n The Last Word the next so of • them framin you ours in near thank targets like to and the endeav soon to a car park mme.” tahun Melissa! he said. development prograpromised a Salamat oulang participation,” generation.” y Street Journal ence is set were … sigh • Delegates are Talking to Batter This year’s confer boasting • The way we p venue’ for applauded the poolside • It’s t yet, ‘spectacular cliff-to Moans from the later, Stevenson to be the bigges matters, it’s , which will be conference is delegates, 55 a bug’s life • Size the gala dinner the fact that each around 1,000 at the and Jun, open t (Thursday) more than 150 distinct from each other. official • John an held tonigh restaurant. presentations, 19 is time, 18, first Pages . ence the for kimono Puri Bhagawan “Each confer at exhibitors and which lasts it’s got its own ence will close mme event, confer ual progra The individ a charity really . days of the event. characteristics and I don’t 4pm on Friday for the three each with re them want to compa (See pages 12-13) Rand and Thanking David PAGE 1

O

Early editions of the ABC conference newspaper Battery Street Journal had a pic of a distinguished conference organizer fast asleep — cruel observers said he’d been playing back a video of his opening talk.

However, one eagle-eyed reader spotted the glitch and the management team rushed into action, destroying the first newspapers and preparing a new edition. “We had to hold the front page, make up new plates before the presses could roll again,” said Karen Hampton, BSJ publisher.

“It must have been that ELBC lot,” said one cynic. “It’s revenge, they’re jealous about the size of ABC’s screens.”

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ERNAT WWW.BATTERIESINT

Size matters

— it’s official In the battle for the biggest back-screen to a conference ever, ABC has proved to be a winner once more.

“We’re at least four metres longer than Samsung’s last conference here. We’ve got the biggest screen in the whole battery business,” said one of the organizers.

“Cough. It’s not what you do with it that matters, it’s how you display it.”

Pic: Not actual size of backdrop!

But close!

Just when Farid ‘WoodMac’ Ahmed thought he’d won the Brightest Shirt on the Beach competition at the ABC closing night party, his hopes were dashed.

Along came the boulevardier distingué, the ever-stylish, ever-elegant Mike Halls redacteur en chef of the internationally acclaimed — or so he claims — Batteries International.

The disappointment was tangible. Ahmed slumped into his beer with a sob saying, “I don’t want to be a sore loser or a bitch BUT that shirt and those shorts don’t go … tasteless! ... and as for those shoes…”

114 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

www.batteriesinternational.com

Coming soon to a car park near you …

Salamat oulang tahun Melissa!

“I just suppose this’ll have to do,” said one delegate looking at the dazzling sea of candlelit tables, show platforms and dining areas at ENTEK’s gala night extravaganza at ABC. “But I had hoped for something a little more fashionable. You know a bit more over or under the hotel?”

Apparently trendsetters at other conventions had already explored the wonders of underground car parks for drinks and networking, “so why couldn’t ABC be a little more fashionable?” she said. “Why can’t they get in the zone?”

Earlier rumours that the fuddy-duddy organizers had been seen outside a multistorey facility in downtown Denpasar were scotched — apparently the organizers had merely been arranging a police cavalcade to accompany the trip to the event.

“Not such a bad idea,” said the delegate.

“But why leave the hotel when we could just be driven downstairs?”

Maura McDermott, the brains behind the ELBC event next September in Milan said that exhibition booths were being replaced by bay numbers, unisex restrooms would use nearby stairwells (‘but remember to take your napkin with you as we don’t have taps’) and losing admission cards might incur all day fines.

The way we were … sigh

Prelude to the ABC extravaganza in Bali a select group of friends of OEM’s Melissa Maggioni had an intimate soirée at an elegant restaurant close to the conference hotel. The friends who had just sang Happy Birthday and You’re 21 Today were cut short by a blearyeyed delegate on the next table whispering “How odd, she was just 21 in ABC Macau too ...” www.batteriesinternational.com

Memories of a distant age. In the earliest years of the ABC the equivalent of what was then the gala night always ended with a sing-song with multinational groups competing to showcasing their national song.

The choice of songs was eclectic. “Was Australia’s national song all about waltzing and billabongs (whatever they are)?” said one veteran. “And is it really true that the Brits had an ‘earwig’ song that they insisted on singing at football matches?

“We all liked that one as the words weren’t difficult for us who didn’t speak English as a first language. “It went ‘earwig-o, earwig-o, earwigo-ho, earwig-o … and then … earwig-o, earwig-o.

“It was bit mystifying but then again English is the language of Shakespeare.”

Batteries International • Autumn 2019 • 115

i l a B n i … d r o The last w Moans from the poolside Why Bali?

The Batterymen of Old — sturdy men who would as happily drink a beer or taste the strength of an electrolyte with a dip of a finger and a lick — are a vanishing breed.

Instead Modern Day Battery Person is a sensitive, gentle soul as reflected in the moans at recent ABC meetings…

In Thailand we heard that the roof-top bar was a little high and the underwater piped music — yes the underwater piped music — in the swimming pool didn’t play country and western.

In Kuala Lumpur there were moans that the hotel floor looked a bit slippery if it were to get wet — æwhy don’t they make public announcements about these potential perils?”. And let’s not forget that the flowers in reception might be a trifle smelly … if you weren’t used to it, of course.

And the nearest equivalent to a paradise setting most people have ever seen at 18ABC, we’ve heard that there are too many swimming pools — “it’s confusing having five” — and the Indonesian beer could go to your head if you drank too much of it. “They need to give us a warning about this.”

These irresponsible five star hoteliers need to be outed! Please e-mail all complaints to us at: abcmoanscommitteeagainstnaughtyhotelmanagersandwhydonttheyeverreplytome@ batteriesinternational.com.

“Culture. That’s the name of the lead battery game,” says culture vulture Mark ‘Stev-o’ Stevenson, conference organizer.

“So it’s going to be all about traditional Bali culture.

“You know beaches, sand, sea and stuff.

“But our spark of genius will be to add a lead acid theme.”

Blue plaque awarded to conference hotel

THE HAWKES/AHMED LEAD PRICE CONSULTATION CENTRE

The infamous blue plaque — indicating in the UK that legendary figures of literary and cultural significance had lived there — has been posted in the entry hall of the Westin.

“It’s to honour the Great and the Good of the Battery World,” said the hotel management.

“Over to the left we have the Mark Richardson Speedy Registration Desks, mid-centre we have the Advanced Battery Thinkers’ Coffee Bar — yes it is very small, we prefer to call it snug — and to the right we have the Carbon Additive Charred Barbecue Party Hang-Out. “Elsewhere, the beach bar has been renamed the Hawkes/ Ahmed Lead Price Consultation Centre.

And for heaven’s “And just below that, we thought ground level was best, we sake don’t complain have the press room about the length of — it’s that room on our email. the corner that says: ‘no standing on the seats and please wash your hands when The extraordinary convoy of VW leaving’.” jeeps — some 50 in all — escorted by Bali’s finest police force to the ENTEK gala dinner — certainly caused a stir in downtown Denpasar.

But rather than comments about how honoured the island must be to have such distinguished delegates Well, of course we all do. But it was odd to see how gracing the roads, some of the local the Indonesian rupiah, separated the men from the citizenry were unimpressed. boys. Those good at sums quickly realised that if you “I know for a fact they paid three took away most of the noughts a million buck bottle times as much for a police escort than of wine was rather good value in a five star hotgel. the last conference did. ‘Wow look at Not so for one timid Brit who stayed on tap water for those losers go!’ the whole of the conference.

‘Wow look at those losers go!’

Who wants to be a millionaire?

116 • Batteries International • Autumn 2019

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