Fundacion CIDAUT celebrates the 3rd General Assembly and First Review Meeting of the European Project ESTELLA

Researchers from the CIDAUT Foundation Centre, as coordinators of the ESTELLA project, have travelled to Belgium on 30 and 31th January to celebrate their third General Assembly. The meeting was held at the facilities of Celabor, partner which is contributing to research activities related to nanocellulose fibres.  Hence, the 13 members of the consortium presented the progress made in their competences, the results achieved so far and, consequently, defined the new tasks to be carried out in the coming months.

ESTELLA aims to solve the major environmental problem of composites based on conventional fibre-reinforced epoxy resins, which are technical materials with a very low recyclability rate. So far, the researchers have worked on the development of recyclable thermosetting biocomposites, with a methodology based on the development of innovative recyclable thermosetting matrices, the functionalisation of fibres (continuous and discontinuous) highly compatible with the resins developed, the design and manufacture of composites, and the recycling of matrices and composites.

The current challenge focuses on the selection of epoxy fibres and matrices within the battery developed in the project for use in the manufacture of the composite prototype in wich Fundacion Cidaut is working, as well as the study of the different types of recycling (chemical, mechanical and biological) applied to the composites obtained.

All these results were successfully presented on 6th February 2024, when the ESTELLA consortium attended the First Review Meeting of the European ESTELLA project with the European Commission.

For further information on ESTELLA, please visit www.estellaproject.eu

The research leading to these results has received funding from Horizon Europe Programme under grant agreement nº 101058371.

Fundación CIDAUT will attend JEC World 2024

Fundación CIDAUT will attend JEC World 2024 from 5th to 7th March as a member of the Osiris Network (Gaiker, Aimplas, Aitex and Fundación CIDAUT). Osiris Network will participate as an exhibitor in #PabellónEspañaV – Hall 6 H108, organised by AEMAC – Spanish Association of Composite Materials.

At the stand of Osiris Network, representatives of the four technology centres (Gaiker, Aimplas, Aitex and Fundación Cidaut) will exhibit and will introduce the developments in the field of recycling of composite plastic materials and solutions for the revaluation of composite materials that have been carried out in the three years of the project, with the aim of showing the progress and research and transferring these solutions to interested industrial companies.

In addition, Fundación CIDAUTA will attend as coordinator of the ESTELLA European project. The aim of ESTELLA is to obtain recyclable thermostable biocomposites from new materials, such as recyclable thermostable resins and natural fibres. The recyclability of these biocomposites will be investigated through chemical, mechanical and biological recycling processes that can be used to produce new materials from composite waste. ESTELLA has reached the halfway point of its duration and the JEC is therefore a great opportunity to learn about the project’s objectives and its main advances.

FENNAC PROJECT – Scaling up of production line for ALTRIS cathode material Fennac for use in sodium-ion batteries

Swedish sodium-ion battery developer ALTRIS was selected by InnoEnergy as one of the winning applications for a 2-year innovation project that aimed to scale up its cathode material for Na-ion batteries. The InnoEnergy’s Innovation Project initiative selects companies with sustainable energy innovations that have high commercial potential and provides them with investment funding.

FENNAC project focused on two areas: production scale-up / commercialisation of Fennac, as well as performance and safety testing. ALTRIS was thankful to be joined by two heavyweight partners to realise this project. Ahlstrom-Munksjö, a French manufacturer of fiber-based products that provided heat-resistant separators for the Fennac-based battery cells and CIDAUT the Foundation for Transport and Energy Research and Development in Spain to develop and perform safety cell testing.

https://www.altris.se/news/scaling-up-production-of-fennac-in-2022

The project kicked off in July 2021 with an extensive feasibility study, which included analysis of the market, competitors, value chain, IP protection strategy, business model, and financial projections. The project finished in July 2023 and the outcomes of the project were presented including the design of the pilot production line, procurement of the required large-scale equipment, the design of the recycling system and the required equipment from Altris. CIDAUT also presented his extensively work on the development of test protocols for the safety of Fennac-based cells, with results from the cell components mechanical deformation analysis, the different abuse tests on the complete cells and the simulation models developed in the project to understand the severity of failures in the Na-ion batteries.

Outcomes from the FENNAC project were recently presented from ALTRIS with their commercial-sized sodium-ion battery cell with the highest energy density to date (160 Wh/kg). This achievement is made in a research partnership with NORTHVOLT, a Swedish supplier of high-quality battery cells, which intends to use sodium-ion technology as a foundation for its next-generation energy storage solutions in upcoming markets.

CIDAUT at the 244th Electrochemical Society Meeting

The 244th ECS meeting took place at Gothenburg (Sweden) from the 8th to the 12th of October. This international conference brings together the most active researchers in academia, government, and industry—professionals and students—to engage, discuss, and innovate in the areas of electrochemistry and solid-state science and related technologies. This is the premier destination for industry professionals to experience five days of learning, technical presentations, business development, and networking opportunities.

CIDAUT had the opportunity to present its work on the development of simulation models to improve battery safety. This work is focused on the lithium metal batteries (LMBs) safety studies including the investigation of predictive models to determine the critical parameters that would lead to potential failure and provide critical insights to understand the mechanical and internal short circuit behaviour of LMBs under mechanical abuse. Having a numerical model that correctly represents the cells and its response under different abuse tests could allow identifying main issues and helping on the cell design and chemistries to be used. To develop these models using LS-Dyna, it has been necessary to carry out studies of mechanical deformation on cell components and the complete cells. These studies have offered a better knowledge of the deformation of the inner components of the battery being useful to identify the mechanism that initiate short circuits under mechanical misuse conditions. Building numerical models for batteries requires experimental work that provides not only the data for mechanical behaviour of individual components (anode, cathode, separator, etc.), but also validation data for simulations of internal short circuit induced by mechanical abuse.

r-LightBioCom project held its 2nd Project Meeting

The r-LightBioCom project, funded by the EU, held its second Project Meeting on 26th-27th September 2023. The meeting, attended by more than 30 people, was hosted as an on-site and online hybrid event by the project partners Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe GmbH (Leibniz Institute for Composite Materials) and Hochschule Kaiserslautern (University for Applied Sciences) in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

The first day was dedicated to presenting and discussing the project progress. Work package leader gave an overview of all technical work packages, and the participants reviewed the achievements and results obtained since the project has started. All attendees had the opportunity to see and lay their hands on the first samples produced in the project. Following the technical project progress review, the meeting host Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe GmbH gave all attendees a tour of the research laboratories.

On the second day, the consortium welcomed the newest r-LightBioCom project partner Gen2Carbon, who had just recently become an official partner of the project. After that, all partners focussed on the impact measures of the project as well as the overall project management. The day ended with a visit to the research and development facilities of the project partner Hochschule Kaiserslautern.

STWIN project – Development of cutting-edge Friction Stir Welding systems supported by real-time monitoring techniques and Artificial Intelligence

The STWIN project, coordinated by CIDAUT, will develop a flexible friction stir welding (FSW) system capable of automatically fabricating complex structures, for a variety of joint configurations, and for a range of steel grades and thicknesses used in the metal construction, automotive and transport sectors.

The project will address the need to improve productivity in the metalworking sector, improvement of the working conditions for welders and operators and the shortage of skilled welding personnel in Europe. This will be achieved by exploiting the specific advantages of the friction stir welding process, in combination with real-time quality control, based on innovative non-destructive testing and their integration with artificial intelligent and smart digital twin solutions. This will lead to a zero-defect manufacturing approach ensuring robustness, stability and repeatability of the process.

In FSW, a rotating tool is pressed into the gap between two parts. The friction between tool and parts produces heat, which leads to plasticising of the materials. The tool is then moved along the joint line. The combination of translation and rotation of the tool transports the material behind the tool, thus creating the joint.

In STWIN, a novel real time monitoring and control system will be built and demonstrated. The intention is to use the measured process parameters like rotation speed, forces, complemented with the measurements by a smart combination of sensors. These relationships will be used by closed-loop AI control algorithms, which will enable real time adjustment of process parameters, guaranteeing an improved joint quality, towards a more sustainable and defect-free production.

The research leading to these results has received funding from Horizon Europe under Grant Agreement nº 101112504.