Nyobolt, a supplier of ultra-fast-charging niobium-based battery technology, unveiled the company's first Nyobolt EV prototype EV on June 28. Weighing only 1.25 tons, the lightweight Nyobolt EV supercar was designed and manufactured by CALLUM to test the performance of Nyobolt's niobium-based batteries and to demonstrate that niobium-based batteries can help improve the charging speed and customer experience of electric vehicles.
Founded in 2019, Cambridge, UK-based Nyobolt uses patented carbon and metal oxide anode materials, innovative low-impedance battery designs, integrated power electronics and software controls to create high-power, high-energy-density batteries and fast-charging systems, according to the company's website. This battery technology can be applied to the electrification of industries and vehicles, such as heavy-duty off-highway trucks, electric vehicles, robotics, and consumer devices that require high power and fast charging cycles.
Initial on-board testing with a 350kW (800V) DC fast charger confirmed that the 50Ah 35kWh battery on the Nyobolt EV can be charged from 10% to 80% in 4 minutes and 37 seconds, with the prototype achieving a range of 155 WLTP miles on a full charge. That's twice the speed of most of today's fastest charging vehicles. In addition, with a constant current of 500A for the first four minutes, it provides a range of 120 miles in just four minutes of charging.
Nyobolt's technology also solves the attenuation problem typically associated with lithium-ion battery boosting. According to the company, Nyobolt's 24.5Ah battery has successfully completed more than 4,000 full DoD (depth of discharge) fast charge cycles, which equates to more than 600,000 miles if used in a Nyobolt EV battery pack, while still retaining more than 80% of battery capacity. This is many times higher than the warranty on the larger EV batteries on the road today.
The company also said that the Nyobolt 2.6Ah battery can achieve more than 23 cycles when charged at 12C and discharged at 12C at 4,400°C, as confirmed by some third-party automakers. And, after 4,400 5-minute charge cycles, the internal resistance of the battery only increased by 50%. This is lower than the industry-accepted scrap value for EV batteries, which is typically twice the initial value.
Although some OEMs have charging times of around 15 minutes, a closer inspection will reveal that charging often spans a limited SOC area, specifically chosen to limit the life of the battery, for example, between 20-80%. Typically, the charging profile will only maintain these peak charge levels for a short charging time. Nyobolt's low-impedance battery ensures sustainability, with battery life extended to 600,000 miles in the company's published technology demonstration.
Dr. Sai Shivareddy, co-founder and CEO of Nyobolt, said that the 35kWh battery pack in the Nyobolt EV prototype not only increases range, but the compact size of the battery pack allows the EV to be cheaper to buy and run, and to manufacture with less resources.
While the priority use of this Nyobolt EV was to demonstrate and test battery technology, the team at CALLUM designed it so that it could be produced in small batches – for road or track use. Nyobolt's battery assembly plan is more advanced, with the possibility of small batches within a year, increasing to 1,000 battery packs by 2025.
Nyobolt also says its flexible manufacturing model can produce up to 2 million cells per year once mass production.
The architecture of the Nyobolt EV also highlights how it can be retrofitted to an existing EV platform, bringing about significant changes in charging time and battery cycle life. The battery module of the Nyobolt EV is cooled by a cold plate with a water/glycol mixture. The battery circuit uses an AC compressor and condenser as well as a battery cooler, which is compatible with other high-performance vehicles and produces near-standard modules and battery packs. Limited heat generation (no more than 60 °C during fast charging or performance drive) is primarily influenced by ultra-low impedance battery chemistry.
Nyobolt also said it is already in communication with eight other automakers about adopting its technology. In addition to its automotive applications, Nyobolt's fast-charging technology will be deployed in robotics this year, and it is also advancing applications in other fields, such as heavy-duty commercial vehicles, which require low downtime and high productivity.
Nyobolt's technology builds on a decade of battery research led by Cambridge University battery scientist Professor Clare Grey CBE and Dr. Sai Shivareddy, and the invention of advanced supercapacitors. Boasting the exclusive intellectual property of the original niobium-based anode invention by renowned battery scientist Professor Clare Gray at the University of Cambridge, Nyobolt is the key to being able to provide ultra-fast charging without compromising battery life is that its low-impedance battery generates less heat, making it easier to manage such high power levels during charging. The niobium-based anode material used in lithium-ion batteries allows electrons to transfer more quickly between the anode and cathode.
In a 2018 paper published in the journal Nature, Gray and his research team mentioned that two complex niobium-tungsten oxides, Nb16W5O55 and Nb18W16O93, use crystallographic shear and bronze-like structures, respectively, and can embed large amounts of lithium at high rates, even if the size of the niobium-tungsten oxide particles is micron-scale. Measurements of the lithium-ion diffusion coefficients in both structures show that the room temperature values are orders of magnitude higher than those in typical electrode materials such as Li4Ti5O12 and LiMn2O4.
Professor Clare Gray, a battery scientist, said in an interview at the time:
"In this work, we break the traditional nanoscale and nanostructure strategies of electrode materials to overcome poor ion diffusion and electronic properties (e.g., TiO2 and Li4Ti5O12). We demonstrate that practical high-rate battery electrodes can be achieved without the usual size, structure, or porosity standards using the appropriate host lattice.
Instead, we used insights gained from previous studies of complex binary niobium oxide, such as the low-temperature polymorph T-Nb2O5, and superionic conductors, such as lithium lanthanum titanate perovskite (LLTO), to identify structural motifs that should exhibit favorable lithium diffusion properties, resulting in superior performance that allows the use of micron-scale particles at extremely high rates. We show that when polyredox 4D and 5D transition metals are used with appropriate three-dimensional oxide structures, we can achieve extremely high volumetric energy densities and impressive rates. ”
The UK-based developer of ultra-fast-charging niobium-based battery technology closed a $10 million Series A funding round in early 2021 with the support of Microsoft investor Marc Doyle, former CEO of DuPont, and leading technology investors William and Andy Matthes, and subsequently opened an office in Boston, USA. The company's startup team comes from companies such as Lotus, Tesla, Samsung, and Dyson. Currently, the company currently has operations in the United Kingdom, the United States and Asia.
Article source: Qinglan Energy
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