Dal prof takes charge of batteries' lifespan

LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES used in electric cars and other emerging technologies need to perform for decades, but how do you tell how long they will last without waiting for them to die?
That is the $4.1-million question Dalhousie University physics and chemistry professor Jeff Dahn and his research team plan to answer with help from a federal Automotive Partnership Canada investment.
“I’m pretty thrilled,” Dahn, a pioneer in lithium-ion Canon Digital Ixus 400 battery development, said about the $4,176,005 investment announced Tuesday through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
Dahn said the money will fund a five-year project to build “a serious piece of infrastructure” that will determine in a matter of weeks the lifespan of experimental lithium-ion Canon Lp-e5 batteries by measuring how efficiently they store and deliver electrical charges.
“To develop something that will last 10 to 20 years, you can’t wait,” he said. “You need to know quickly if the battery will last.”
Private-sector project partners include: 3M Canada, a leading supplier of battery materials; GM Canada, which is developing long-range electric cars; Magna E-Car Systems, developing automotive lithium-ion cells; Medtronic Energy and Component Center, producing lithium-ion powered medical devices; and Nova Scotia Power Inc., which has a vested interest in electric cars and could used the Acer Aspire 5552 batteries to smooth fluctuations in wind energy generation.
Dahn said the funding announced Tuesday will add several new researchers to his 25-member lab team.
Private partners will provide lithium-ion cells for testing and other in-kind investment.
David Rodenhiser, a Nova Scotia Power spokesman, said Dahn’s innovations in testing experimental lithium-ion Acer Aspire 5740 batteries could speed up the development of higher-capacity, lower-cost batteries that would have implications for electric cars and the utility’s capacity to store energy to level out wind energy spikes.
“We’re proud to partner in that,” Rodenhiser said.
Nova Scotia Power contributed $30,000 for lab upgrades.
Engineering professor Stephen Corbin, another Dalhousie researcher, received $2,211,530 from the research council for a four-year project to develop low-cost titanium for automotive applications, particularly exhaust systems.
In an interview, Corbin said that titanium is much lighter than steel, which could help improve automobile fuel efficiency, and also resists corrosion that eats steel exhaust systems.
The titanium project also involves researchers at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and the University of Waterloo and two private-sector partners from Ontario, Kingston Process Metallurgy Inc. and Wescast Industries in Brantford.
Corbin said 17 researchers will be involved in the project.