Webinars

MONASH UNIVERSITY: Will Lithium-Sulfur Batteries be Part of the Future of Energy Storage?

Lithium-sulfur batteries can displace lithium-ion by delivering higher specific energy at a lower cost. Presently, however, the superior energy performance fades rapidly due to instability issues of the electrodes and the electrolyte. Extensive research and considerable progress over the past ten years have solved the instability issue of the sulfur electrode to a large extent. However, the formidable challenges of the more difficult electrode, lithium metal, (safety and cyclability) are yet to be resolved. Therefore, Lithium-Sulfur battery research programs should have at their heart, stabilizing the lithium electrode, as addressing it is predicted to ensure a rapid transition to commercial level life-spans. After all, the highest specific energy can be achieved by battery chemistries that utilize lithium metal as the negative electrode.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• What’s so good about sulfur?
• Great capacity brings great stress!
• Will we see the revolutionary return of Lithium metal?
• Electrolyte challenges (we need too much of it but it’s heavy!)
• Current status and future prospects

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani – Research Fellow at Monash University

Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani has expertise in materials synthesis, engineering, and scale-up for next-generation energy storage systems including lithium-sulfur batteries, silicon anodes, flow batteries, supercapacitors, and lithium-ion capacitors. She has conducted research in developing expansion-tolerant architectures for high capacity electrodes such as sulfur and silicon, fabrication of separators, synthesis of graphene and carbon materials for supercapacitors, and exploring the use of lithium-sulfur batteries for more sustainable and clean transportation and grid storage. Mahdokht has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, with a focus on energy storage from Monash University, Australia.

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(FREE) VOLTAIQ: Battery Intelligence in Action – How to Launch an EV

Launching a new EV platform is a high-stakes game, where any problems encountered during battery pack development can severely jeopardize target ship dates. Developing an EV battery pack is a lengthy process comprising multiple interconnected stages that span from choosing the right cell to integrating the full pack into the vehicle. Each of these stages is complex and involves function-specific battery testing and analysis. This webinar will walk through each stage of EV pack development in detail, and will highlight how an integrated Battery Intelligence platform can drive an on-time launch and ensure quality and traceability, while minimizing risk throughout the vehicle lifecycle.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Discuss how the battery is the most complex and costly component in the development of an EV, and is the component most likely to delay launch
• Review the complex multi-step process required to develop an EV pack and demystify pack development from cell selection through vehicle integration
• Showcase an interactive demonstration of key analytics

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Dr. Eli Leland – CTO at Voltaiq

Dr. Eli Leland is a Voltaiq co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, responsible for the company’s Product and Engineering functions. Prior to Voltaiq, Eli worked at the CUNY Energy Institute as lead engineer on an ARPA-E energy storage and power conversion research project. Before CUNY, Dr. Leland worked at Trilogy Software, where he successfully deployed large-scale enterprise software systems to Fortune 500 companies. He was a Mirzayan Policy Fellow in Energy and Environmental Systems at the National Academies in Washington, DC. Eli has an MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and a BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton.

Voltaiq is a proud sponsor of this event.

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(FREE) LI-CYCLE: Approaches to Recovering Critical Materials From Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

As the world transitions towards sustainability and low carbon emissions, lithium-ion batteries are being used across a broad spectrum of products and industries. The automotive industry, in particular, estimates 559 million of electric vehicles will be on the road by 2040. Consequently, lithium-ion battery waste is forecasted to hit over 11 million tonnes by 2030.

How can the world deal with this oncoming tsunami of lithium-ion batteries?

The audience will have the answer after this webinar as this presentation will walk through both global and future approaches to dealing with end-of-life batteries and explore the importance of recovering critical materials from lithium-ion batteries to meet future demand.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Global end-of-life lithium-ion battery market opportunity
• Recycling vs reuse
• Incumbent technologies for ‘recycling’ lithium-ion batteries
• New technologies and techniques for recycling lithium-ion batteries
• Comparative benefits of recycling technologies

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenters
Ajay Kochhar – Co-Founder, President and CEO
Tim Johnston – Co-Founder, Executive Chairman

Ajay Kochhar is a Co-Founder, President and CEO of Li-Cycle Corporation, an industry leading lithium-ion battery resource recovery company. As President and CEO, Ajay is responsible for all strategic aspects of the company and overall leadership. Ajay has been pivotal in leading the company from an idea to a commercially operating lithium-ion battery recycling company.

Tim Johnston is a Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Li-Cycle Corporation. Since 2019, Tim has lead Operations, Research & Development, and Capital Projects at Li-Cycle. Prior to that as Non-Executive Chairman, he helped support the strategic decision making and guide the R&D team through critical phases of the company’s development.

Li-Cycle is a proud sponsor of this event.

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(FREE) NUVATION ENERGY: Course 1 of 3 – Optimal Design Approaches to Battery Racks, Packs and Modules

There are several ways to reduce the cost of your battery stack design while maintaining high performance and reliability. Alex Ramji, Senior Hardware Designer at Nuvation Energy will present a variety of approaches for lowering the cost of battery control electronics through innovative module and rack design. He will share examples of module and stack configurations for different types of cells, and explain how they have been architected to meet target stack voltages, amperages, and ESS capacities.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• The master/slave battery management system model
• Reducing BMS hardware through module, tray and stack design
• Battery stack solution examples
• Management of multiple stacks in parallel

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Alex Ramji – Senior Hardware Designer at Nuvation Energy

Alex Ramji manages Nuvation Energy’s Hardware Solutions team, a group that develops a range of battery management products for large-scale energy storage systems. He is the lead designer of integrated battery management solutions that simplify energy storage system development. He has designed stack-level battery management products, system-level control systems, and novel battery stack architectures. Alex brings a multidisciplinary skill set of both electrical and mechanical engineering to system design, and is a key contributor to Nuvation Energy’s megawatt-scale energy storage projects.

Nuvation Energy is a proud sponsor of this event.

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ICL: Battery Design Optimization Using Cell Cooling Coefficient

Lithium-ion cells and battery packs are not designed to maximize the performance of thermal management systems. As a result, every cell in use is performing sub optimally, and is degrading needlessly fast. The root cause of the problem is the lack of information surrounding the thermal performance of lithium-ion cells. Cell Cooling Coefficients (CCCs) have been developed to quantify the cell thermal performance. They can immediately tell the user exactly how a cell will behave in a battery pack, vital information for the design of any thermal management system. They can also be used to inform redesign, both at the cell level and at the battery pack level.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Battery heat generation: why, and why is it complex
• Thermal management in battery packs
• The problems with battery design: energy density above all else
• Cell Cooling Coefficient as a universal metric
• Using the Cell Cooling Coefficient to evaluate battery design and propose beneficial redesigns

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Alastair Hales – Research Associate, Imperial College London

Alastair earned a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bristol in 2016. Prior to joining Imperial College London in 2018, Alastair worked for SUEZ Advanced Solutions UK, designing equipment closely linked to his PhD topic, and as a Research Associate at Queen Mary University of London. Alastair’s existing work is focused around the thermal management and thermal effects of lithium-ion cells. Alastair led the work introducing the Cell Cooling Coefficient as a universal metric to quantify battery thermal performance. He is now building upon this research to develop capability for cell design optimization.

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(FREE) VOLTAIQ: Battery Qualification 101

Batteries are the most complex and failure prone components in modern devices. To mitigate risks, companies extensively qualify battery cells and packs, a time consuming and expensive process that can lead to delays in product launch if issues are surfaced. Effectively managing time, personnel, and equipment is critical to meeting deadlines while also ensuring products meet safety and performance requirements.

In this webinar, we’ll provide an introduction to battery qualification and show interactive demonstrations of performance qualifications. We’ll also highlight best practices and value-added analytics to ensure that quality issues are surfaced soon as possible so that product release timelines are met.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Discuss the need to qualify batteries
• Discuss the different types of battery qualification
• Introduction to common performance qualifications — rate capability and cycle life among others
• Interactive analysis demonstration, first using traditional tools and then using a Battery Intelligence System
• Best practices to ensure product release timelines are met

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Dr. Tal Sholklapper – CEO at Voltaiq

Dr. Tal Sholklapper has an extensive record of success as a cleantech engineer and entrepreneur. Prior to founding Voltaiq, he worked as the lead engineer on a DOE ARPA-E funded project at the CUNY Energy Institute, developing an ultra low-cost grid-scale battery. Before joining CUNY, Dr. Sholklapper co-founded Point Source Power, a low cost fuel-cell startup based on technology he developed while at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, where he also did his graduate work in Materials Science and Engineering. As a Materials Postdoctoral Fellow at LBNL, he successfully led the transfer of lab-scale technology to industry partners.

Voltaiq is a proud sponsor of this event.

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(FREE) NUVATION ENERGY: Course 2 of 3 – Battery Stack Design for UL 1973 Certification

If you are developing a stationary energy storage system, chances are you have already heard of UL 1973 and UL 9540. Being certified to these important safety standards is quickly becoming the price of admission in the energy storage industry. When taking your battery stack design through the UL 1973 certification process, the level of effort is significantly impacted by the compliances and ratings of the individual components in your battery rack. Join Nate Wennyk, Senior Hardware Designer at Nuvation Energy, for an inside look at the development of UL 1973 Recognized battery stack solutions.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Understanding battery stack architecture
• Impacts of component certifications on the UL 1973 LOE
• Designing flexibility into a locked-down stack configuration
• UL 1973 Recognition case studies and engineering war stories

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Nate Wennyk – Senior Hardware Designer at Nuvation Energy

Nate Wennyk manages Nuvation Energy’s Device Hardware team, a group that develops battery management system hardware for small- and large-scale energy storage applications. His experience ranges from grid-tied residential, commercial and industrial (C&I) behind the meter platforms to front of the meter energy storage and specialty vehicle applications. Nate possesses extensive field experience and has been a key contributor to system integration and commissioning projects for storage systems across the United Sates as well as on remote islands. He is currently Senior Hardware Designer for Nuvation Energy’s next-generation BMS product research and development team.

Nuvation Energy is a proud sponsor of this event.

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WPI: Experimental Investigation of Cascading Failure in Lithium Ion Cell Arrays – Impact of Cathode Chemistry

In lithium ion arrays, thermal runaway may propagate from a failing cell to neighboring cells and grow into a large-scale fire in a phenomenon referred to as cascading failure. A new experimental setup was developed to investigate cascading failure using 12 cell arrays constructed from cells of 18650 form factor. Thermal runaway was initiated in one cell using an electric heater and observed to propagate through the array using temperature sensors. Cascading failure was studied in nitrogen or air environment to elucidate the impact of combustion. The cell temperature allowed calculation of row-to-row propagation speed in arrays of different cathode chemistries. The yields of oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, total hydrocarbons and hydrogen were measured; corresponding fire hazards were assessed.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Thermal runaway propagation
• Thermal runaway hazards
• Failure dynamics
• Flammability and toxicity
• Failure Mitigation and suppression

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Ahmed Said – Postdoc Fellow, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Ahmed Said is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is broadly interested in problems related to fire, combustion, and thermal sciences. He is currently engaged in several projects: fire safety of lithium ion batteries, wildland fires, and fire spread on façade systems. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2020 from the University of Maryland, College Park. He also received his BS and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from Cairo University.

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(FREE) NUVATION ENERGY: Course 3 of 3 – Gain More Visibility Into Your Energy Storage System

Long-term ownership and management of an energy storage system requires high visibility into the batteries to enable problem identification and resolution, compare actual vs. predicted degradation curves, and plan for capacity augmentation. Real-time diagnostics and historical battery health data can be utilized to improve system reliability and reduce the total cost of ESS ownership. Join Nuvation Energy CEO Michael Worry for an examination of how battery data analytics can be retrieved from the BMS and utilized to optimize system maintenance and contribute to the long-term viability of the energy storage system.

This webinar will focus on the following key topics:

• Business impacts of low visibility into internal battery operation
• Problems frequently encountered by operators in the field
• “Cell to cloud” remote system diagnosis
• Battery warranty tracking

A PDF copy of the presentation will be sent to all attendees after the event.

Presenter
Michael Worry – CEO at Nuvation Energy

Michael Worry founded Nuvation in 1997 and has grown the company into a thriving electronic products and engineering services firm with offices in Sunnyvale, California and Waterloo, Ontario Canada. He is the CEO and CTO of Nuvation Energy, a provider of battery management systems and engineering design solutions for large-scale energy storage. Michael has been a hands-on engineer throughout his career. He is deeply involved in battery management and energy storage system design and can often be found working on energy storage system installations at client sites.

Nuvation Energy is a proud sponsor of this event.

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