Materials

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Europe’s meeting place for technical foam professionals in the automotive industry

Foam Expo Europe is a free-to-attend trade fair and conference, taking place on 5-7 December 2023 in the manufacturing hub and car capital of Stuttgart, Germany. It’s co-located with Adhesives & Bonding Expo Europe and Thermal Management Expo Europe, plus your free pass includes access to Automotive Interiors Expo Europe, our event partner.

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Europe’s meeting place for industrial bonding professionals in the automotive industry

Adhesives & Bonding Expo Europe, co-located with Foam Expo Europe and Thermal Management Expo Europe, is a free-to-attend trade fair and conference scheduled to take place from 5-7 December 2023, in Stuttgart, Germany - a renowned manufacturing hub and an established location for the automotive industry.

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Carbon fibre made from sawdust

Researchers at the Bernal Institute in the University of Limerick (UL) are developing processes to create sustainable carbon fibres for car structures and batteries (writes Nick Flaherty). The processes use lignin, which is found in the walls of plant cells and is the second most common carbon material after cellulose.

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Sabic plastics contribute to electric record-breaking performance

Sabic has provided materials as part of its work on an electric car known as the Genbeta (writes Nick Flaherty). The materials are high-performance thermoplastics that provide more processing flexibility to enhance the car’s aerodynamics, contributing to its acceleration and speed.

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Calcium shows promise for cells

Researchers in Japan have developed a promising rechargeable calcium metal battery with a long lifetime (writes Nick Flaherty). The prototype is capable of 500 cycles of repeated charging-discharging. As the fifth most abundant element in Earth's crust, calcium is widely available and inexpensive, and has a higher energy density potential than lithium.

Focus on...

Adhesives

Increasingly important in multiple applications in vehicles of all kinds, adhesives are central to the assembly of batteries, power electronics and motors used in EVs. Current development efforts are focused in areas such as ease of use in volume manufacturing as the EV industry gears up for mass...

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ML finds solid-state cell materials

Researchers in the US have used machine learning (ML) to identify new combinations of materials for solid-state batteries (writes Nick Flaherty). The class of compounds, called argyrodites, contains attractive...

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PowerCo announces dry coating technology for cell production

PowerCo SE is to introduce a new manufacturing process in its battery cell production plants in Europe and Northern America. It aims to industrialise the so-called dry coating procedure in conjunction with printing machine specialist Koenig & Bauer.

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Plastics offer key role in designs

Plastics are now able to replace metal for the construction of EV charging stations (writes Nick Flaherty). SABIC has created a concept demonstrator made with all-plastic components to showcase the use of high-performance plastic resins and blends in EV chargers, using expertise developed under a project called BlueHero.

Deep Insight

Optimising battery materials

As battery technology moves towards solid-state cells, Nick Flaherty reports on the latest research into improving their performance There are many materials involved in the optimisation of battery cells beyond the anode, cathode and electrolyte...