The Frauhofer website provides an information service, connecting the scientific community and the consumer. We found their website while researching lighter battery enclosures. Frauhofer is participating in the COOLBat project, which is developing next-gen battery casings with smaller carbon footprints.
Potential Benefits of Lighter Battery Enclosures
An electric vehicle battery may contain hundreds, if not thousands of tiny, cylindrical cells. Therefore it follows that a slight reduction in cell size and weight, could effect a significant change at battery scale.
But this modification might also reduce overall battery carbon footprints by as a much as 15%, according to Frauhofer. We are reminded of the ancient proverb, “From tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow”.
The COOLBat project hopes to achieve this goal through combining individual battery management systems, and then packing them in smaller spaces. Other innovative ideas include “using new heat-conductive materials, and bio-based flame retardant coatings”, they say.
Smaller, lighter battery enclosures containing cells could make an even greater contribution. That is, if the raw materials weighed less, and were more carbon-responsible too. This should in theory be achievable by:
- Targeting battery enclosures holistically, and challenging each individual aspect.
- Here we think for example of management systems, frames, lids and base plates.
The Principle Is Simple When We Tie It Down
The smaller and lighter the cells and the battery enclosures, the further electric vehicles should travel on single charges. This is because the energy consumed per mile should be less, all other things being equal.
“Reducing mass allows us to increase energy density, and thus driving range, even if the number of battery cells remains the same,” says a scientist at Frauhofer. “By making an enclosure lid out of fiber composite instead of steel, for example, we reduced the mass by more than 60%”.
More Information
Lighter Weight Batteries – The Next Challenge
Electric Vehicle and Hybrid Battery Review
