meeting report
AABC-10: The 10th International
Advanced Automotive Battery Conference
Orlando, FL USA
May 17-21, 2010
- Battery Design Company
- Pleasanton, California
For the week starting on May 17th, Orlando became the epicenter of the hybrid and electric vehicle world thanks to the 2010 Advanced Automotive Battery & EC Capacitor Conference. The conference attracted more than 900 attendees from around the globe that included the leading developers of vehicles, automotive systems and batteries, as well as important government officials and academics. This conference is widely considered one of the best in the world, and this year exceeded expectations. The conference provided a poster area and large exhibition halls that featured over 95 exhibitors. AABC-10 brought together a critical mass of knowledgeable industry insiders that stimulated discussion and voicing of experiences and opinions that gave all the attendees valuable insights into this emerging industry. This year’s highly successful conference caps a decade of consistently providing a high level of industry participation, content, and value. A brief synopsis of the sessions follows.
Monday, May 17th, provided a full day of tutorials on lithium-ion batteries and electrochemical (EC) capacitors. The lithium-ion battery tutorials covered materials, design, and manufacturing, and the EC capacitor tutorials covered design and market prospects. Tuesday, May 18th, offered the 6th International Symposia on Large Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Applications (LLIBTA) and Large EC Capacitor Technology and Application (ECCAP). LLIBTA and ECCAP ran in parallel all day Tuesday and then on Wednesday morning. This author attended the LLIBTA conference and, due to space limitations, can only present just a few highlights.
Led by Prof. Martin Winter (Muenster University), LLIBTA’s first session opened with a discussion of lithium-ion electrode materials by Prof. Stanley Whittingham (SUNY). Prof. Whittingham, famous for first showing in the 1970s how to use insertion compounds as cathode materials in lithium batteries, provided a great perspective of current materials. Other talks by Dr. James Gardner (3M) and Dr. Sujeet Kumar (Envia) discussed the latest developments in insertion materials, and Dr. Yuan Gao (FMC) explained a practical approach for prelithiating anode materials that increases the capacity of lithium-ion batteries as well as enabling the use of new cathode materials such as low-cost electrolytic manganese dioxide.
Dr. Marc Verbrugge (GM), chairman of LLIBTA’s second session, discussed next generation lithium/air batteries. Dr. Steve Visco ( Polyplus) gave an exciting talk that explained how primary lithium/air batteries work and ideas for making rechargeable lithium/air batteries practical. He was followed by Prof. Martin Winter who described the very serious challenges facing development of practical lithium metal batteries as well as the latest progress in lithium/polymer batteries.
Led by Ken Damon (Leyden Energy), LLIBTA’s third session focused on the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries by the leading producers of lithium-ion battery processing equipment. Tsumoru Ohata (Primix Corp.) explained the importance of mixing in electrode preparation and the tremendous advantages of continuous mixing for producing high quality electrodes. Katsuhiro Omori (Hirano TECSEED Co.) described the latest equipment for high-speed coating, while Yoshihide Kitamura (Kaido) and John Dispennette (Arcotronics) described winding and stacking machinery, respectively.
The last LLIBTA session, led by Dr. Robert Spotnitz (Battery Design), focused on design trade-offs for lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Youngjoon Shin (LG Chem) explained the advantages of pouch cell design such as the stacked plates eliminate problems due to bending the electrodes in wound designs and greatly simplify current collection. Dr. Eric Darcy (NASA) gave an outstanding presentation that described how NASA qualifies commercial off-the-shelf lithium-ion cells for space missions and explained their methodology for identifying potentially bad cells.
Dr. Uwe Wiedemann (AVL) described a methodology for qualifying cells for automotive use. Dr. Peter Pichler (Magna) shared his rich experience with a wide range of lithium-ion cells.
After the presentations, the panel was joined by Joe LoGrasso (GM) and Ted Miller (Ford) who provided perspective from automakers on batteries, and some questions for the speakers. Before opening up the panel to the audience, Dr. Spotnitz asked a series of questions trying to get the panel’s views on various lithium-ion chemistries, cell designs, and pack cooling strategies.
The first session of the 10th International Advanced Automotive Battery and EC Capacitor opened on Wednesday May 19th. Dr. Menahem Anderman chaired the first session that included talks by Michael Lord (Toyota), MaryAnn Wright (Johnson Controls), Russell Hensley (McKinsey & Co.) as well as Dr. Anderman (AABC) and Tomohide Kazama (Nomura Research).
Dr. Anderman’s conservative forecast for the automotive lithium-ion batteries raised a gasp from the general audience but nods of agreement from many industry experts. Many of the panelists mentioned the importance of government support to the industry as well as the need to find a value proposition for the consumer.
Ted Miller (Ford) chaired and kicked off the second session by describing the steps necessary for a successful transition from vehicles powered by internal combustion engines to electrified vehicles. Next, Sebastian Scharner (BMW) described the development of hybrid vehicles at BMW and efforts and an analysis of the characteristics of various lithium-ion battery chemistries. The session was filled out by descriptions of various battery systems by Masato Isogai (Hitachi), Michael Keller (Continental) and Jeff Kessen (A123).
Dr. Roland Matthe (GM), chairman of the third session, described the lithium-ion battery system developed for the Volt/Ampera PHEV. This session also included two talks by Makoto Nakashima and Takehito Yoda (Toyota) that for the first time gave details of the PHEV Prius and its lithium-ion battery pack (air cooled). Tom Watson (Johnson Controls) explained cooling strategies for hybrid vehicles while Kevin Rzeemien (FEV) described a pack development process, and Russel Newnham (ETEC) described experimental work to evaluate the performance of a lithium-ion battery in a vehicle-to-grid application.
David Howell (U.S. Department of Energy) chaired and opened the fourth session with an informative overview of the U.S. DOE battery programs. Prof. Winter described EU and German battery programs. Dr. Henry Mao (BAK) described the automotive battery industry in China and gave details of BAK’s battery systems. Dr. Ahamad Pesaran (NREL) described two new U.S. DOE programs aimed at developing computer-aided engineering tools for energy storage systems and evaluating secondary use of automotive batteries. The session was rounded out by descriptions of electric vehicles by Lars Johansen (TH!NK), Phil Gow (CODA) and Gerald Wing (Mitsubishi).
Dr. Peter Pichler (Magna) chaired and kicked off the fifth and final session on Battery Pack Design and Integration into Light and Heavy Duty Hybrids. Steve Hartridge (CD-adapco) explained how CD-adapco has integrated battery simulation into their computer-aided engineering software package, Star-CCM+, and how the tool can be used to design thermal systems for automotive batteries. Bridget Deveney (Saft America) described the range of large lithium-ion cells and packs offered by Saft America. Kevin Beaty (Eaton) and Dan Youngs (Allison Transmission) shared some of their experience of using NiMH batteries in hybrid delivery vehicles and buses. The batteries have logged millions of miles with no significant problems, but the high cost remains an obstacle to widespread adoption.
Dr. Anderman closed the conference by announcing that the 2011 Advanced Automotive Battery & EC Capacitor Conference will be held in Pasadena, California, on January 24-28, 2011, and the European conference will be held in Mainz, Germany on June 6-10, 2011.
As usual, the smoothness and professionalism of the AABC conference operation was remarkable!
