Energy storage activities in the Swedish hybrid vehicle centre

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2009

Significant efforts are put worldwide on developing new concepts for vehicle propulsion with the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) being a prominent example. Hybrid technology is clearly a strategic future activity for automotive industries and in response to the rapid development in the area; the Swedish Hybrid Vehicle Centre (SHC) was formed in 2007 to join forces between Swedish industry and academia in the field. The centre emphasizes a holistic view to meet the environmental and societal needs with new technological solutions. The research within SHC is currently divided into three different themes whereof we here describe the Energy Storage theme with emphasis on the activities carried out at the involved universities in the current main project areas: Cell Properties, Electrode Materials and Electrolyte Additives. Examples are given on how these projects attacks the problems at hand separately, but also how we create synergy effects between the projects. As an example cell modelling is performed given a specific chemistry and cycling scheme, the same parameters are used for electrochemical experiments which provide macroscopic data that are connected with molecular level actions in the electrodes, the electrolyte, and the interfaces. All this is done using our base-line chemistry and a subsequent route is to investigate the role of different additives to overcome the limitations that are observed.