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Avicenne Energy has been forecasting technology roadmaps and trends for nearly 30 years. The rechargeable battery market has moved from Lead Acid and NiMH to a majority Lithium-Ion with substantially higher energy density from its time of launch nearly 30 years. There has been a lot of hype over high silicon anodes, lithium metal, semi solid state, solid state and now we are seeing new technologies of sodium ion and Iron/Air. The discussion will cover the advances, technology, and business model changes along with early forecasts for technologies that have made significant progress.

All-solid-state thin-film batteries combine the characteristics of solid-state batteries, such as long lifetime, ultra-fast charge/discharge and safety, and can be fabricated by physical vapour deposition (PVD) at industrial scale. The talk will present several recent highlights from Empa, including stable cycling of Li-rich NMC thin-film cathodes, carbon interlayers for anode-free configuration, and thin solid electrolyte separators. At last, we will present a monolithic stacked multi-cell battery fabricated entirely by PVD methods, which could boost specific and areal capacity and enable a new type of ultrafast rechargeable battery.

Batteries are a critical technology to succeed the phase out of fossil fuels and accelerate the decarbonization of our society. However, despite the significant progress made in the last decade the current batteries still are too expensive and are not capable of storing enough energy. We need more affordable batteries that need much less critical raw materials for every kWh.
If there is no significant cost reduction and much higher efficiency in the use of raw materials the wider electrification in sectors like passenger cars, heavy duty vehicles, marine or aviation will not happen despite a regulatory framework going in that direction. Simply, only end consumers with high purchasing power will be able to afford eco-friendly and sustainable products.
In that context, if the carbon neutrality ambitions of the society are maintained, the situation will widen social inequalities and set back decades of social and economic progress.

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Based on our unique ML-supported innovation & patent analysis approach, the commercial prospects of various permutations between solid electrolytes (sometimes mixed with a minor amount of liquid) and Si-rich or lithium metal electrodes will be discussed. Each permutation has a different prospective performance / safety / cost profile, which can be compared with requirements of consumer electronics, aerospace, EV and stationary storage applications.

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o overcome the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, new battery technologies, such as lithium and beyond lithium metal, are being investigated. However, these solutions often suffer from dendrite growth or surface passivation at the metal anode site. Carbon nanomembranes (CNMs) are an electrically insulting 2D nanomaterial that has shown its ability to conduct lithium ions and promote homogeneous ion deposition when used in conjunction with conventional separators. These properties open the possibility of using CNMs as a promising material to enable metal anodes batteries, not only by modifying the interface of separators but also of metal anodes by acting as an artificial solid electrolyte interface to prevent dendrite growth. We will discuss in this presentation the technical and economic potential of these possibilities of CNMs in next-generation batteries.

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Current lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are based on liquid electrolytes and are used in many mobile and stationary applications. However, their optimization potential is diminishing as technology advances - it is expected that this technology will slowly reach its limits in the coming decade. Solid-state batteries (SSBs) using solid electrolytes, which are under development and could reach the market in the coming years, offer the promise of improving several important key performance indicators (KPIs).
The presentation will look at the past and future developments of solid-state batteries and discuss promising SSB cell concepts. Potential advantages and shortcomings in KPIs such as energy density, safety, lifetime, cost and fast-charging capability are compared to the benchmark of liquid electrolyte LIB. Estimations on how the SSB market could grow in a phase of strong LIB production expansion and, finally, the main application scenarios and markets of SSB will be discussed.

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The manufacturing of All-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) is challenging especially for the ceramic electrolyte systems that are intrinsically brittle and conventionally require high temperature/high pressure for densification. To address these challenges, we are developing laser-based manufacturing of ASSLBs, the technology of which has many tunable knobs such as a variety of laser wavelength and pulse duration options, versatile beam shaping capabilities, and computer designed scan strategies. In this presentation, I will discuss the interactions between continuous wave lasers (fiber lasers, CO2 lasers) and solid-state electrolytes. Experimental observations of laser induced solid state reactions, densification, melting, decomposition and cracking will be presented. The findings such as accelerated densification, anisotropic shrinkage, and controllable microstructures demonstrate the great potentials of laser sintering for the fabrication of high-quality solid-state electrolytes.

Lancaster based, LiNa Energy Ltd is a clean tech company which addresses a rapidly growing need for sustainable and low-cost energy storage. LiNa is commercialising high performance sodium batteries which offer greater safety, sustainability, and lower cost versus lithium-ion. LiNa’s breakthrough battery technology can not only help the world get to net-zero by 2050 but help achieve it sooner.

LiNa’s innovative new storage technology, enables more renewable energy to be used when and where it's needed. Key to LiNa’s innovation is the use of an ultra-thin sodium-conducting ceramic electrolyte rather than the flammable solvent used in conventional batteries – this enables inherently safe performance and greatly increased energy densities. LiNa batteries contains no cobalt or lithium, enabling transparent and ethical supply chains using locally sourced materials and domestic manufacturing. Using abundant raw materials and scalable processes will enable LiNa to manufacture cells for less than $50 / kWh, half of the cost of lithium-ion batteries today.

This presentation will give an introduction to the LiNa cell technology, the fundamental electrochemical reactions, electrode structures and electrolytes. The use case of the technology within the battery energy storage markets and examples of the demonstrations made to date on the development pathway will be presented including results of abuse testing confirming the inherent safety credentials of the technology.

Today’s wearables, hearables and other products used in space-constrained applications need a safe, fast-charging microbattery with high volumetric energy (VED) and long cycle life in the 1 milliampere-hour (mAh) to 100 mAh capacity range. This presentation will explain how anode-less solid-state lithium technology now enables the development of rechargeable microbatteries that deliver these benefits when implemented with an architecture and manufacturing approach that supports high-volume applications. The latest architecture and manufacturing approaches have removed previous barriers to solid-state technology’s adoption in microbatteries for powering an estimated one billion products shipped annually. These approaches maximize energy density while enabling end-to-end fabrication and packaging in a conventional cleanroom rather than expensive dry (zero humidity) environment. Additionally, the approaches increase VED through the use of an ultra-thin stainless steel substrate, and diced and vertically stacked packaging layers. This also enables a customizable footprint at a desired capacity, and the use of conventional metal terminals for creating a surface-mountable device that is compatible with low-temperature-reflow assembly processes. Attendees will also learn about the opportunities ahead as anode-less rechargeable solid-state lithium miocrobatteries enter the market and transform how wearable, hearable and other products are designed, manufactured and powered.

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The vast majority of electrolyte development has focused on liquid-based solvent systems and solid-state ionic conductors. Given the delicate balance of electrochemical stability, ionic conductivity, and safety, new electrolyte development is incredibly challenging but crucial to pushing the boundaries of energy storage. South 8's Liquefied Gas (LiGas) Electrolyte technology offers a unique approach addressing many shortcomings of existing liquid and solid-state electrolytes for lithium batteries. These electrolytes are a platform technology to develop a variety of next-generation high-energy electrode chemistries to achieve >400 Wh/kg and have demonstrated significant safety improvements with the elimination of thermal runaway while maintaining excellent cycle life (>1,000 cycles) and temperature operation (-60 to +60C). With these benefits, South 8's LiGas electrolytes can address an entirely new class of batteries for market applications such as electric vehicles, all-weather grid storage, defense, aerospace, an

To enable long range EV’s and electric trucks, technological breakthroughs at the chemistry level are required. These innovations are needed for all aspects of the battery system, but specific attention must be given to the anode and the electrolyte.

One of the main challenges with long-term cycling performance of next generation battery system is the interfacial behavior of the anode and the SSE. These challenges arise from either chemical instability between the anode and the SSE or mechanical stress between the anode and the SSE. These two challenges are accentuated at the anode due to the anode’s low standard electrode potential and because of the large volumetric expansion next generation anodes (like silicon) experience.

If the electrolyte is reactive, inflexible, and penetrable, even the best active anode materials will be worthless. To address these issues, we have developed a novel class of electrolytes that improve operational temperature range, require no stack pressure and can work with next generation Si anodes.

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In the face of greater demand for advanced battery technology, be it in EVs or energy storage, the necessity for improved technology to meet this demand is ever-looming. Alongside wanting to improve performance we must consider material costs and availability. This talk will cover where we are currently with battery technology, focusing on the EV market status and trends. As well as discussing where the industry is headed and emerging technologies