Entrepreneurs and academics around the world are trying to discover the extent to which innovation can expand the power and performance of batteries.
Since 2017, the Washington Clean Energy Testbeds at the University of Washington have provided a space, tools and expertise to support that work for startups and staff and students at the university. Today, leaders at the facility are unveiling plans for an open-access lab that will allow researchers to validate their new technologies by incorporating them into custom-made pouch-type batteries.
“A battery is a chemical system highly engineered so that all the parts work together,” said Dan Schwartz, founding director of the University of Washington. Clean Energy Institute, which includes the test banks. “And the nation really doesn't invest enough in that kind of engineering work.”
Here is the challenge. Researchers typically address one component of a battery system to optimize it, such as the chemistry of an anode. But they need to demonstrate how their solution works with the rest of the ingredients if they want to demonstrate its benefits.
The new lab will provide that missing piece of engineering infrastructure.
The facility will have a dry room and equipment to create electrode slurries, coat electrodes and layer battery components. The batteries will be manufactured in plastic-lined aluminum bags that will look like a Pop Tart package.
While useful for experiments, pouch batteries also have commercial applications in electric vehicles and consumer electronics. Schwartz said there is growing demand for pouch-type batteries from heavy transportation and aviation.
“There is flexibility to create optimized designs for all kinds of different use cases,” he said. “And this is at a scale where it can be tested.”
The new 1,600-square-foot laboratory expansion will involve repurposing some of the storage space within the current 15,000-square-foot test bed facility, located just east of the main campus of the University of Washington in Seattle. Its inauguration is scheduled for next summer.
The project will cost $7.5 million. The money comes from the state's Climate Commitment Act, a program that supports the clean energy transition and could be eliminated if Initiative 2117 passes next month.
The industry has been clamoring for these new resources, Schwartz said. In the last seven years, 150 cleantech companies have used the testbeds to work with batteries, photovoltaic energy, the electrical grid and other technologies. Battery alumni include Group 14 Technologies and Ecellix, two Washington companies that have developed silicon and carbon materials that replace graphite in battery anodes.
“These new testbed prototyping capabilities are filling a critical need for battery innovation infrastructure in the U.S.,” Rick Luebbe, CEO and co-founder of Group14, said in a statement.
Group14 has raised more than $650 million from investors and is building what could become the world's largest silicon anode materials manufacturing facility in Eastern Washington.
As battery companies ramp up operations, there is also a growing need for skilled workers. The University of Washington will launch a Graduate Certificate in Battery Engineering in January that will include workshops on Testbeds and will be offered to students at two-year schools in Washington.
In a few years, all of the clean energy testbeds will move to a new building called Brightwork, which will be part of a broader University of Washington initiative called Portage Bay Crossing. Construction was supposed to begin this year and take about two years to complete, but the developers have not yet broken ground.
Schwartz said his labs are designed to be packable and moveable. And with increased demand for better batteries, the Pouch Cell Lab couldn't wait for a new building to be built.
“This is a field that can't go slow,” Schwartz said.