Advancing Structural Battery Composites: Robust Manufacturing for Enhanced and Consistent Multifunctional Performance

Abstract

Multifunctional materials offer a possibility to create lighter and more resource‐efficient products and thereby improve energy efficiency. Structural battery composites are one type of such a multifunctional material with potential to offer massless energy storage for electric vehicles and aircraft. Although such materials have been demonstrated, their performance level and consistency must be improved. Also, the cell dimensions need to be increased. Herein, a robust manufacturing procedure is developed and structural battery composite cells are repeatedly manufactured with double the multifunctional performance and size compared to state‐of‐the‐art structural battery cells. Furthermore, six structural battery cells are selected and laminated into a structural battery composite multicell demonstrator to showcase the technology. The multicell demonstrator performance is characterized for two different electrical configurations. The low variability in the multifunctional properties of the cells verifies the potential for upscaling offered by the proposed manufacture technique.

Keywords

• biomimetics
• carbon fiber composites
• lithium-ion batteries
• multifunctional materials
• resin-infusion
• self-sustaining materials