Awaiting Public Project Summary

With the UK government's mandate to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, together with the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, there is no doubt that the battery market is going to experience rapid growth over the next 10 years. Solid-state batteries are a key technology to augment and replace current lithium-ion technology due to their increased safety and potential to achieve greater energy/power densities. Project partners, Lucideon, KWSP and Loughborough University will assess two complementary technologies, Additive Manufacturing (AM) and contactless Field Enhanced Sintering (c-Flash) to manufacture thin, textured/designed films of solid electrolytes for Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. This new method of manufacturing addresses three of the main technological challenges with solid-state batteries: thin film processing, increasing electrolyte/electrode interfacial area and minimising ion volatilisation. This project will simultaneously target benefits in resource and energy efficiency, assessing the possibility of combining two novel and highly efficient technologies to exploit the strengths of both systems. The processes and pilot scale manufacturing will be developed in parallel to expedite technology exploitation. AM offers significant benefits such as digital production flexibility, reduced material waste and component weight reduction. The exceptional design freedom inherent in AM will facilitate thin film deposition ultimately aiming for interpenetrating 3D structures of anode, electrolyte, cathode in solid-state, eliminating the conventional constraints and breaking the energy-power limit of current systems. c-Flash, developed for processing thin ceramic films, has significant benefits such as dramatically reducing sintering times and lowering peak sintering temperature. Enhanced ceramic electrical and mechanical properties are also possible, via microstructural changes from c-Flash processing. An increase in ceramic strength would enable thickness reduction and lower resistance with benefits for solid-state battery design and performance. c-Flash can be used to rapidly densify electrolyte material resulting in significant reduction of ion volatilisation during processing. The project will be guided by an industrial steering committee, representing a cross-section of the battery supply chain. The committee will offer advice and discuss/steer exploitation of technology as objectives are met. A breakthrough from this project could create a unique technology for exploitation in the UK. This technology would allow the UK to become a leader in low energy and low waste manufacturing methods. Solid-state batteries made by this route could take significant shares of the EV battery market and adoption by the UK battery supply chain would reinforce the UK's ability to grow and compete in this sector.

"AM (Additive Manufacturing) offers significant benefits over many conventional production methods: digital production flexibility, reduced material waste and exceptional design freedom. Processing ceramic by AM offers the potential to create complex parts without tooling and offers precise material control which is not possible by conventional processing methods. The widespread adoption of ceramic AM technology is however hindered by material availability, process maturity, material properties and cost. In particular, the inability to melt ceramics and the requirement for organic phases to aid processing, create significant barriers. In the CerAMake project novel material chemistry will be developed which exploits the unique processing characteristics of piezoelectric inkjet technology providing significant microstructural control and improved properties via a scalable ceramic binder jetting platform. Advanced material characterisation and evaluation techniques will be applied to validate the suitability of the material throughout the process chain, providing a baseline chemistry applicable to a wide variety of ceramic materials. This will result in the first ceramic AM technology capable of achieving highly complex parts in a rate capable system suitable for multiple market sectors. CerAMake is also focused on uniform deposition of powder based feedstock material as a substrate for the novel fluid chemistry. Conventional deposition methods limit the range of material/powder particle sizes which can be used, generate anisotropic properties and produce low powder bed density resulting in high part porosity or significant firing shrinkage. The novel deposition process used in CerAMake is designed to uniformly compact the print bed, resulting in higher powder density and homogeneity of the green specimen, aiding the development of mechanical isotropy in the final part. This homogeneity is also essential for uniform densification of unfired parts, facilitating the fabrication of fully dense, complex ceramics. To demonstrate the innovation in the new approach, material requirements from three distinct sectors of the ceramics industry (high performance ceramic manufacture, refractory filter production and, decorative and practical homewares) will be identified, produced and functional demonstrators manufactured for evaluation by end-users. This new integrated material and process capability will act as an enabler for increased uptake of ceramic AM in the UK, leading to higher levels of confidence and investment. This will boost the productivity and competitiveness of the partners in the project and will have a transformative effect on the UK ceramics industry as well as placing the UK AM sector in a leading position."

"With all vehicles becoming electrified in some way by 2040, and considerable change occurring across all social, environmental and economic domains for energy storage and management, there is an ever-increasing resultant demand requiring Li-ion and other battery chemistries and technologies. To answer this critical need, we must to ensure the creation of effective production processes for battery manufacture, and a connected supply chain to support the future for the UK in this sector. This project seeks to generate a feasibility study and prototype demonstrator of a new technology in electrode coating process, which is a critical part of the manufacturing process of a battery and has the potential to dramatically improve cost efficiencies, and assist the adoption of the electrification. This novel technology will lead to significant efficiencies overall in the manufacturing lifecycle and consequently the value chain. It will assist to reduce cost, improve performance together with battery understanding, and reduce wastage of both valuable raw materials and scrap. Electrodes form part of the battery cell and it is essential to ensure that these electrodes are uniformly and consistently coated with material, as this considerably affects productivity yields and performance, and also dramatically affects cost. This project will look at how to create a hardware platform that will digitally print electrodes more accurately, using suitable material formulations, and with greater speed, which will develop advanced and cost effective manufacturing techniques, and bring battery manufacture increasingly in line with digital industry advances. This will ultimately assist to advance the UK's competitive position in battery cell technologies and production, and importantly, the transition to a low-carbon economy."

e-Porthos is a £730km, 18 month collaborative research and development project co-funded by Innovate UK and the collaborative partners. The 3 project partners, from across academia and market sectors are University of Newcastle and Peacocks Medical Group with project lead KW Special Projects. Our demonstrator application is foot orthoses. These are medical devices proscribed to patients who have a foot disorder, and the devices are designed to re-align the foot or provide comfort to patients. The devices take the form of an insole which fits between the foot and shoe, and the devices are custom made to fit a particular patient. Additive Manufacturing (AM) has grown as manufacturing method for orthoses due to the ease of manufacture and reduced waste, but relatively slow build time, when compared to traditional subtractive manufacturing. Our innovation is twofold; firstly we intend to exploit a nascent technology, to massively increase the deposition rate achievable for the manufacture, which offers the benefits of reducing unit cost, and potentially allowing for "while you wait" supply. The second innovation regards disrupting the manufacturing process and allowing the clinician who measures the foot to use data capture and design tools to automatically create the Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) data to manufacture the orthotic. Through this project the consortium aim to generate technology and expertise to improve outcomes for our customers, both patients and healthcare providers, thorough better fitting and less expensive orthoses. Whilst developing AM platforms and solution supply within the UK economy. The project started on 1st September 2017 and is due to complete on 28th February 2019 with the output being a functioning printing process using Augmented Reality to print foot orthoses quicker than at present.

The project goal is a novel generic technology (UltraMAT) for materials processing of fluid and semi fluid phases that are widespread in manufacturing e.g. in the welding and adhesive joining of components, the manufacture of bulk composite components and in traditional, PM (HIP) and semi solid casting. The key purpose of UltraMAT is to enable production of manufactured components with step improvements in specific strength (yield/ fatigue/ impact) and modulus, fatigue life and thus lightweighting; driven by economic and environmental needs to reduce energy consumption and emissions in manufacture and transport. The enabling tool is power ultrasound with purpose shaped force fields for controlled movement and size creation of uniform nano structures to enable: (1) Production of homogeneously distributed and shaped nanoscale particulates, fibres or grains). (2) Enhancement of interlayer and filler-matrix adhesion bonds.UltraMAT will be validated through the fabrication and testing of samples of a number of key structure/joint types of growing importance especially in aerospace or automotive bodies/engines: (i) Ti/Al fibre laminates (ii) Ti/Al metal matrix composites with fibre/ particulate (ceramic TiC/SiC), Ti/Al laser welding and (iv) Al semi solid casting. Homogenisation performance will be studied using graphene (G) and carbon nanotubes (CNT) because the strong agglomeration tendencies of G and NT is impeding their ability to realise commercially, components of ultra high specific strength. In short pulse echo mode, UltraMAT will self evaluate its performance on line aided by predictive big analytics.