The funding for the four projects, totalling up to £42 million, was announced this week by the Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent national battery research institute. Cambridge will receive up to £11.9 million to research how to extend battery life for electric vehicles.
Led by Professor Clare Grey from the Department of Chemistry, the Cambridge-led project will examine how environmental and internal battery stresses (such as high temperatures, charging and discharging rates) damage electric vehicle (EV) batteries over time. Results will include the optimisation of battery materials and cells to extend battery life (and hence EV range), reduce battery costs, and enhance battery safety.
The project includes nine university and 10 industry partners, including the University of Glasgow, University College London, Newcastle University, Imperial College London, University of Strathclyde, University of Manchester, University of Southampton, University of Liverpool and WMG, at the University of Warwick.
The other three projects to be funded by this week’s announcement are Battery system modelling, led by Imperial College London; Recycling and reuse, led by the University of Birmingham; and Next-generation solid-state batteries, led by the University of Oxford.
If successful, this research has the potential to radically increase the speed with which we are able to make the move to electric vehicles, as well as the speed with which we can decarbonise our energy supply, with obvious benefits to the environment.
Image: Tesla Supercharger
Credit: Chase Lewis
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge