Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CAPOWER (ADVANCED MATERIAL FOR COST EFFECTIVE AND HIGH DENSITY ULTRACAPACITORS FOR THE TRANSPORT SECTOR)

Teaser

During this first year of the CAPOWER project with the support of the H2020 Xerolutions has advanced in the technical definition of the equipment necessary to scale the manufacturing process from a pilot plant. In parallel tests with possible final customers have been...

Summary

During this first year of the CAPOWER project with the support of the H2020 Xerolutions has advanced in the technical definition of the equipment necessary to scale the manufacturing process from a pilot plant. In parallel tests with possible final customers have been developed and the results have had a direct impact in the industrial design of the plant.

A important part of the time has been spent in engineering works. The aim was to design a flexible plant to allow different types of final product for each of the possible customers, given that depending on the final product use (type of supercapacitor) a different product could be required. Equipment made ad-hoc for the process patented by Xerolutions have to be scaled, so different tests have been carried out to verify the usefulness of the equipment offered for the manufacturing process of Xerolutions. The main technological challenge was to design and verify the necessary conditions of the main equipments to fullfill the requirements of for getting the estimated values of the economic plan.

Comercial challenge: Xerolutions searched potential customers (organic electrolyte, aqueous and ionic liquids) to set a smaller scale program of tests. These tests were established to uncover market needs and to adapt the product manufactured by Xerolutions to the final customer demands. This shall establish the bases of manufacturing on a large scale. During the testing phases (still in progress) with each iteration, the internal distribution of Xerolutions activated carbon (micro / meso porous distribution and micro / meso pore size) is adapted to give the client a competitive advantage. Furthermore, the change from one type of active carbon to Xerolutions’ one should not imply any change in the customer\'s manufacturing process, and should provide competitive advantages for our customers.

Technical challenge:
With some of the main suppliers, the main challenge was designing -from engineering point of view- equipment that complies with ATEX standards. Conventional equipment is not applicable for the manufacturing process of Xerolutions. Once this work is completed, there is greater assurance that the final equipment will comply with legal measures to ensure the safety of people in the surroundings and that it is able to operate autonomously under safe conditions.
At the same time designs and prototypes are made in order to allow a more adequate scaling from a current process in batch to a continuous process with the aim of ensuring the quality on the final product.
Several tests with different prototypes were necessary to give the operational parameters that the equipments have to meet to ensure the quality in the scaling. The tests were not compatible as each supplier used a different technology and working method. The challenge has been to scale the equipments so that the suppliers have all the sufficient information to be able to guarantee the operation according to the Xerolutions quality standards. The manufacturing method of Xerolutions is under patent and industrial secret, so the suppliers had no references of the behaviour of their equipment for our process. It was necessary to adapt their operation and configuration of the equipment to obtain the desired product. In other “standard” equipment, the key was in the internal configuration of each provider that was directly linked to their capacity. These tests were 100% necessary to verify the dimensions of the equipment and the optimal internal configuration to scale upon a production capacity desired in the business plan. These equipments are used in similar processes but the manufacturer did not have references on their behaviour with the raw material manufactured by Xerolutions (new product), so the tests were necessary to design the internal operation of the machine (know-how of the manufacturer) and to find the optimal dimensions of the equipment to give the desired production ratios.
Due to the high demands

Work performed

• Design of a flexible industrial plant that allows, without changes in the equipment, to have different final products that suit the needs of each client.
• Verify the ad-hoc designs of the main equipment to be supplied by specialized technologists adapting the design, operation and production capacity of the equipment to a new product that has never been handled by these suppliers before, as the raw material introduced to these teams, their composition, behavior and needs to comply with the final quality are know-how of Xerolutions.
• Contacts and co-development tests with final clients. Clients of reference in their sector (type of electrolyte) and that conform their equipment under standards that allow to extrapolate performance data to accelerate the process of introduction to other clients.
• Control of the state of the art of alternative processes and patent conflict. Knowing which are the main development paths in the sectors of interest for Xerolutions, and increase the guarantees of the future of Xerolutions with the development of new patents.

Final results

Xerolutions has developed a new material that would reduce the cost of energy stored in ultracapacitors. This new material (CAPOWER) increases power density, energy density and cyclability compared with the standard material used currently.

The cost efficiency of our material would allow the widespread adoption of the latest energy recovery systems to be introduced in the vehicles in order to reduce emissions and fuel consumption in those periods where extra energy is demanded by the vehicle, in particular starting and restarting procedures and acceleration. Morevover CAPOWER would address to increase the growth rate of the Smart, Green and Integrated Transport by the development of new materials that would increase the energy storage capacity of ultracapacitors.

The main innovations of CAPOWER beyond the state of art are:

High surface area
Easily tunable mesoporosity
Excellent electrical conductivity
Reduced ash or impurities
Full adaptable to customer needs

Website & more info

More info: https://www.xerolutions.com/.