The motivation of this paper is to identify possible directions for future developments in the battery system structure for BEVs to help choosing the right cell for a system. A standard battery system that powers electrified vehicles is composed of many individual battery cells, modules and forms a system. Each of these levels have a natural tendency to have a decreased energy density and specific energy compared to their predecessor. This however, is an important factor for the size of the battery system and ultimately, cost and range of the electric vehicle. This study investigated the trends of 25 commercially available BEVs of the years 2010 to 2019 regarding their change in energy density and specific energy of from cell to module to system. Systems are improving. However, specific energy is improving more than energy density. More room for improvements is thus to be gained in packaging optimization and could be a next step for further battery system development. Other aspects looked at are cell types and sizes. There, a trend to larger and prismatic cells could be identified.

A large number of battery pack returns from electric vehicles (EV) is expected for the next years, which requires economically efficient disassembly capacities. This cannot be met through purely manual processing and, therefore, needs to be automated. The variance of different battery pack designs in terms of (non-) solvable fitting technology and superstructures complicate this. In order to realize an automated disassembly, a computer vision pipeline is proposed. The approach of instance segmentation and point cloud registration is applied and validated within a demonstrator grasping busbars from the battery pack. To improve the sorting of the battery pack components to achieve high-quality recycling after the disassembly, a labeling system containing the relevant data (e.g., cathode chemistry) about the battery pack is proposed. In addition, the use of sensor-based sorting technologies for peripheral components of the battery pack is evaluated. For this purpose, components such as battery pack and module housings of multiple manufacturers were investigated for their variation in material composition. At the current stage, these components are usually produced as composites, so that, for a high-quality recycling, a pre-treatment may be necessary.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been proven to be increasingly popular and are the solution of choice for many companies and business models around the world. One major question for battery owners is how to deal with returning batteries if they still contain sufficient capacity for operation. In this case, those energy storages can still be used in different, less-required second-life applications, such as stationary battery storage systems, contributing to increased product sustainability and economic benefits at the same time. However, the second-life business model is still at an early stage of development due to the young EV market in combination with long vehicle lifetimes. As a consequence, there are several barriers in various thematic fields, complicating the rededication process for LIBs. This review paper focuses on a summary of barriers to second-life adoption published with scientific reference. Furthermore, barriers are clustered thematically to provide a transparent landscape picture and valuable insights into the rededication process of LIBs.

As the market share of electric vehicles continues to rise, the number of battery systems that are retired after their service life in the vehicle will also increase. This large growth in battery returns will also have a noticeable impact on processes such as battery disassembly. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to examine the challenges of the battery disassembly process in relation to the required increase in the degree of automation. For this purpose, a survey of various experts along the battery value chain was conducted, and product-side hurdles, such as the wide range of variants, and process-side challenges, such as the opening of the housing cover or the removal of cables and connectors, were identified. Together with an assessment of the potential degree of automation in the context of downstream processes (reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling), this results in a variety of streams for future research in the field of automated battery disassembly. The core aspect in this context is data availability consisting of product and component data as well as process-relevant parameters.

This paper presents an approach for the design and derivation for establishing a digital product twin for battery cells. A digital product twin is a virtual replica of a physical battery cell and can be used to predict and optimize quality properties and performance in real-time. The study focuses on pouch cell manufacturing and aims to map the large amount and variety of process information down to purchased parts and interim products. The approach for this study was to collect and analyze data from the physical production process and use this information to structure a digital battery product twin based on its product architecture. The main findings of this study indicate that a digital product twin can be effectively structured and implemented in a digital interface based on its product architecture in combination with data from the physical production process. The results of this study show the potential of digital product twins, in which statements about material, design, and behavior can be made using real information from production. Further research will focus on the practical application and implementation of digital product twins in a battery cell pilot production.

In this paper, battery system architectures are methodologically derived in order to find the key type differences. In a first step, the system levels are identified and distinguished. In order to be able to completely cover the solution space of battery system architectures, a distinction is also made between mono- and multifunctional materials. Based on the system levels, a framework for possible architectures is derived. Four system architecture generations with a total of eight different types are identified and analyzed in the dimensions “Nomenclature”, “Approach”, “Omitted Components” and “Industry Examples”. In this way, upcoming system architectures, such as cell-to-pack and cell-to-chassis, can be clearly differentiated. Finally, fundamental product characteristics for the four system generations are derived and compared.