Materials

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Adhesives & Bonding Expo Europe automotive industry event

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 drive Genbeta electric car’s 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.

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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.

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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...

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Battery case materials

The range of materials for developing EV battery cases is growing, and are addressing issues of weight, assembly and even condensation. Glass fibre and composites are opening up design options from modular systems to complete cases, while other materials are helping to improve the properties of the cases, from thermal and electrical