SOLIDBAT Partner Insights – CEA

• Why did you join the SOLIDBAT project? CEA has joined the SOLIDBAT project to contribute to the development of very promising next generation batteries, by assessing the safety of such high energy chemistries and studying degradation mechanisms.

One of our motivations is to design the most relevant experiments, formulate plausible hypotheses, improve our knowledge and the batteries and finally better exploit the results. This is possible thanks to the collaboration with SOLIDBAT consortium partners as it allows a cross-checking and cross-fertilization of our results. We can all benefit from the strong and complementary expertise and experience of the partners.

• Which innovative concept will be developed by CEA within SOLIDBAT?

CEA will mainly develop correlative analyses with in-situ and operando techniques allowing the characterization of internal components in full cell configuration, using 3-electrodes measurements and nanocharacterization with Raman, SAXS/WAXS, XPS. For safety assessment, we will perform abuse tests in dedicated chambers, measure criteria like energy release, kinetics of reaction, thermal runaway temperature and propagation risk. We expect to get insights on physico-chemical reactions associated to electrochemical or thermal degradation process at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces and in the bulk of electrodes.

• Which is the main challenge hampering the deployment of SSBs?

The Li metal stability is highly challenging. It is crucial to reach a high reversibility of (de)lithiation process to avoid loss of active material surface and heterogeneities upon cycling. The Li metal quantity must be minimized and interfaces with collector and electrolyte should be optimized to get homogeneous plating/stripping and limit unwanted reactions.

• Would SSBs be a competitive alternative to lithium-ion by 2030?

For sure, SSBs as developped in SOLIDBAT are competitive in terms of massic energy density in comparison to the best current lithium-ion batteries, as it was already demonstrated in SAFELIMOVE project with more than 250 Wh/kg in prototype cells. In the coming years, manufacturing lines should be adapted and strategies should be set to maximise the cyclability and enlarge the operating conditions. LCA analyses in the project will allow measuring precisely the environmental and economical benefits of such technology.  

• How will your development contribute to the success of SOLIDBAT?

Thanks to a better understanding of the unwanted reactions with our characterization methods, we expect to pinpoint the source of failure and help SOLIDBAT demonstrating a high cyclability and safety with the SSB developped in the project.