Advanced Clean Energy program: Battery energy storage

Featured

• Developing Canada's battery supply chain at the NRC
• Critical Battery Materials Initiative
• 360° video: Battery Prototyping Laboratory
• Composite cathodes for solid‐state lithium batteries
• Degradation mechanisms of nickel-rich lithium-ion batteries (PDF, 127 KB)
• End-of-life battery options (PDF, 838 KB)

Expertise

We offer our clients access to world-class competencies with unique and specialized facilities located at NRC sites across the country.

Battery metals production and processing technologies

• Canadian-specific cathode materials such as lithium, lithium brine, nickel and cobalt salts
• Anode materials such as natural flake graphite and silicon

Battery materials and components

• Processing active materials and their validation in pouch cells (small and large formats)
• Studying and improving electrode properties such as specific capacity, rate performance and cycling stability
• Evaluating cell components, including electrolytes, separators and current collectors
• Developing next-generation, solid-state battery technologies
• Discovering battery materials, including cathode materials that are less reliant on scarce and expensive critical minerals
• Developing autonomous labs for accelerated materials discovery, including robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence

Battery recycling and state of health

• Developing and optimizing recycling processes, including hydrometallurgical and direct approaches
• Performing techno-economic analyses and life-cycle assessments
• Understanding the battery state of health to determine reuse, repurposing or recycling
• Assisting in the development of standards related to the shipment of end-of-life cells, and improving and optimizing battery recycling processes themselves
• Developing autonomous labs for accelerated process discovery and optimization, including robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence

Battery prototyping and performance validation

• Validating battery materials and components in small (<1 Ah) and large (10-30 Ah) pouch cells using battery prototyping line
• Formulating electrode slurries at a pilot-scale, coating active layers, fabricating electrodes and assembling cells
• Developing quality control tools and studying process-performance relationships in battery manufacturing
• Evaluating cell performance at various temperatures, and charge and discharge rates
• Testing battery formation and cycling protocols
• Conducting a post-mortem analysis to determine cell failure modes

Research facilities

Collaborators have access to a wide range of facilities that they can use to perform the following activities:

• Component-level validation
• Manufacturability assessment and improvements
• Materials evaluation and development
• Accelerated testing

The following facilities are available within our laboratories in Vancouver, Ottawa, Boucherville and Edmonton:

• Mississauga labs for accelerated discovery
• Pilot-scale battery manufacturing line facility
• Battery electrochemical performance testing facilities
• Thermal chambers
• Dry rooms
• Materials synthesis labs
• Electrode fabrication facilities
• Cluster computing resources

Equipment

We provide access to a wide range of characterization equipment, such as:

• X-ray diffractometers
• Transition electron microscopes
• Scanning electron microscopes
• X-ray photoelectron spectrometers
• Thermogravimetric analyzers
• X-ray fluorescence instruments
• Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers