ELBC Pre-conference Supplement FINAL Instalment!

Allan Cooper: the man behind the LC SuperHybrid

CO2: the driver for fuel economies – and yet better batteries

Edinburgh and the charms of the 'auld reekie'

Risk versus return: global outlook for lead shows

huge opportunities

Bringing the industry togetherwww.batteriesinternational.com

Allan Cooper: the man behind the LC SuperHybrid

CO2: the driver for fueleconomies – and yet better batteries

stry togetherrnational.com

ASK US FOR OUR SPECIAL EL

BC OFFERS!

14 ELBC: Time for

lead acid to strut its stuff

September 9-12, 2014 14 ELBC, Edinburgh

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2 • Batteries International • ELBC Show Guide • Summer 2014 www.batteriesinternational.com

CONTENTS

Wilson: View from the chair 10

Warmest greetings from ‘Auld Reekie’ 6

Less sentiment, more reason: time to deal with climate change as an industry 26

EDITORIAL 4The legacy of Thomas Midgeley — one of the brightest scientists of his day — persists.

Unfortunately. The genius who invented CFCs and tetra-ethyl lead inadvertently caused a

deep misconception of the dangers of lead that lasts to this day

WELCOME! 6Warmest greetings from ‘Auld Reekie’ — aka as Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city

VIEW FROM THE CHAIR: TO EDINBURGH AND BEYOND ... 10David WIlson, chairman of 14ELBC and an attendee at every conference from the beginnings

reviews the issues in this year’s summit and how they fit into the larger market context

ILA VIEWPOINT: ENSURING A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR LEAD BATTERIES 13Andy Bush, managing director at the International Lead Association looks at the ways the

organization is supporting lead’s most important application

ALABC VIEWPOINT 19Striking the right balance between research and development

PROFILE: BORIS MONAHOV 20This year’s joint winner of the Gaston Planté award for his contribution to the lead acid

battery industry, Boris Monahov, as program manager of the ALABC’s research effort has

still many further achievements to make

SOUNDBITES, SOUNDBITES 24We asked a mix of delegates, exhibitors and speakers one simple question: what do you

regard as the greatest benefit of attending ELBC? An obvious question proved to have very

unobvious answers

GLOBAL OUTLOOK: CLIMATE CHANGE WITHOUT THE IRRATIONALITY 26Some broad perspectives on the global outlook will kick-start 14ELBC at the opening

session. Look for controversy as the discussion moves towards facing the realities — or not

— of how climate change will affect the battery business

Storing renewable energy into the grid — just part of a new world order ahead 38

14 ELBC: TIME FOR LEAD ACID TO STRUT ITS STUFFThe 14th European Lead Battery Conference

in Edinburgh this month could well be the

most influential lead event this side of the new

millennium, even surpassing the spectacular

meetings in Paris two years ago.

In this special show guide and supplement

to the conference we’ve drilled down through

the editorial agenda and interviewed the

luminaries that will be presenting or chairing

the sessions.

We’re firmly of the opinion that this

conference has drawn the threads of the

major issues facing the lead acid battery

business in the future and come up with a

package of presentations that will prove their

value in the years ahead.

www.batteriesinternational.com Batteries International • ELBC Show Guide • Summer 2014 • 3

CONTENTS

Cooper: a popular industry figure now powering the LC SuperHybrid’s development 59

Carbon: less of a mystery ingredient more the power for the next generation of cars 67

With batteries cutting CO2 from car emissions, fuel savings are another lead acid attraction 48

ELBC AND THE GRID: MISSION CRITICAL FOR THE FUTURE 38As one of the fastest growing areas of the global batteries industry, this session of the 14ELBC

covering energy storage involves seven presentations focusing on the latest developments

and technologies in this sector

LEAD FOR LOW EMISSION VEHICLES 48One major conference theme will be the use of lead batteries in low emission vehicles. As the

world comes to grips with reducing CO2 levels, smaller more efficient cars part-powered by

renewable energy will become the new norm

PROFILE: ALLAN COOPER 59In 2008 Allan Cooper was awarded the International Lead Medal for his exceptional

contributions to the lead industry in the fields of metallurgy, production, and battery

development, particularly in electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The story isn’t over yet. His

work will run and run

CARBON AND ADVANCED BATTERIES 67For almost two decades there has been a growing awareness that the inclusion of carbon

could be the most important factor in the development of a new generation of better lead acid

batteries. Now the pace of development is heating up

DELEGATES’ ROUND-UP — PRESENTATIONS TO LOOK OUT FOR 71Ahead of 14ELBC, delegates will be poring over the schedule, studying the presentations and

pondering how to make the most of this annual event. With this in mind, we asked a selection of

delegates and speakers what they believe will be the biggest talking points at the event and what

they hope to gain by attending

SUPPLIERS’ FORUM: IT’S SHOW (CASE) TIME! 77The suppliers’ forum represents a chance for different companies representing a diverse

range of industries, chemistries technologies to showcase their wares. It’s only a 10-minute

slot but a valuable one.

Publisher:

Karen Hampton,

[email protected],

+44 (0) 7792 852 337

Editor: Michael Halls,

[email protected],

+44 (0) 1 243 782 275

Supplements editor: Wyn Jenkins,

[email protected],

+44 1792 293 222

Business development manager

June Moultrie

[email protected]

+44 (0) 7775 710 290

Reception:

tel: +44 (0) 1 243 782 275

fax: +44 1787 329 730

Subscriptions and admin

manager:

Claire Ronnie,

[email protected]

[email protected]

+44 (0) 1 243 782 275

Research editor

Kevin Desmond

[email protected]

Supplement contributing editor:

Sarah Morgan, [email protected]

Production/design: Antony Parselle,

[email protected]

+44 (0) 1727 899 360

International advertising representation:

[email protected]

The contents of this publication are protect-

ed by copyright. No unauthorised translation

or reproduction is permitted.

ISSN 1462-6322

© 2014 Mustard Seed Publishing,

UK company no: 5976361.

Printed in the UK via ThisismethodUK

Disclaimer: Although we believe in the accuracy and completeness of the information contained in this magazine, Mustard Seed Publishing makes no warranties or representation about this.

Nor should anything contained within it should be construed as constituting an offer to buy or sell securities, or constitute advice in relation to the buying or selling of investments.

EXHIBITION GUIDE, 40-46

Our comprehensive listing of exhibitors in the

main hall includes a full run down of sponsors in

this preconference guide and an alphabetical and

numerical list of which firm can be found — and where

EDITORIAL

4 • Batteries International • 14 ELBC Show Guide • Summer 2014 www.batteriesinternational.com

Thomas Midgley Junior isn’t so well known now. But, until his death in 1944, he was reckoned one of the most brilliant men of his day.

Midgley’s fame rests on his two great contribu-tions to mankind — dichlorodifl uoromethane (better known to us as a CFC, the chemical that destroys the ozone layer) and tetra-ethyl-lead, the anti-knocking additive to petrol that was univer-sally accepted as poisonous some 50 years after its discovery.

To be fair, Midgley’s immediate contribution to the planet was, at fi rst, a benefi cent one.

The fi rst CFCs were a boon to air cooling systems and saved many lives. The alternatives, such as propane or chloromethane were toxic, explosive or highly fl ammable. Oddly enough in the 1920s and 30s every year people died at the hands of their fridges.

And tetra-ethyllead provided the automotive in-dustry the push that made the internal combustion engine the workhorse of the planet and the trou-bled dream of an entire nation.

But — 70 years after his death — with CFCs phased out and TEL only found in the poorest na-tions of the world, Midgley’s legacy lingers on.

And in a totally unexpected way.

By putting TEL into our cars, he put lead into the air. Or rather General Motors did (which from its initial manufacturing experiences knew early on from numerous cases of madness and hallucina-tions, that it was dangerous).

Rather like the anti-smoking campaign, public awareness of TEL took a long time to build up.

The trigger for it becoming an issue came from an unexpected direction. Cheap paint and timber

frame houses in the US.

For the very poor in America, their cheap wood built houses could be spruced up nicely with the judicious use of paint — whose principal pigment within it was lead oxide. And the mix of cheap wood, cheap paint? The result: fl akes of peeling lead which entered people’s lungs.

The resulting US (and then later worldwide) leg-islation turned attention to fi nding lead anywhere and everywhere else.

So in the 1960s and early 1970s a seemingly powerful case for getting rid of the lead in petrol emerged. News that the high levels of lead in US and European inner city children caused by petrol fumes created a ripple effect — from the world of the tabloid to seats of government. In the event, legislation to enforce a ban of lead in petrol was inevitable.

At this point, Robert Merton’s Law of Unforeseen Consequences kicked in.

In the public mind by the end of the 1970s lead had now become as dangerous as, say, arsenic or strychnine. Probably even looking at the metal would make you blind or send you into fi ts.

The fact that it was not just fi t for purpose — and maybe the only thing that would easily and cheap-ly work within a car, or a UPS system — was left by the door neatly sitting next to the open-toed sandals.

Even congressmen and MPs are human and jump with the lemmings. The result? We now have a generation of misinformed politicians who, with admirable thoroughness, are trying to legislate lead out of existence.

The lead community have been fi ghting back for a generation and more. But with little impact on a

Time to change the image of lead

Mike Halls • [email protected]

EDITORIAL

www.batteriesinternational.com Batteries International • 14 ELBC Show Guide • Summer 2014 • 5

media that doesn’t want to hear a good news story.

So, for example, arguments about the recyclability of lead continue to have little impact on a general public that believes recycling of say tins or wine bottles is worthwhile but not inherently interest-ing.

But the recycling story — which we’ll hear in detail again this conference — is an important story. It shows a responsible and mature industry that can point with ample justifi cation to a defence that it’s core product is safe. And can be proven to be safe.

The trouble is that changing public perceptions only seems to work best when sensationalism oc-curs.

In Europe, for example, a thoroughly worthwhile book ‘E’ is for Additives, written in 1987, persuad-ed an entire continent of people who didn’t read the book that an E number (the European food code for food additives) was not just a bad thing but a terrible one. (Forgetting of course that E948, for example, is the code for oxygen or that herbs such as oregano would nowadays be coded as too dangerous to be assigned an E number.)

Organizations such as the International Lead Association, EUROBAT, BCI and various others continue to try and fi ght back. But they have an enormous challenge on their hands. And, being respectable bodies rightly enough would not stoop to underhand media trickery.

Events such as this year’s ELBC are important meetings of the great and the good of the lead acid battery community to meet and discuss their

future. High on the agenda, once again, will be looking at way to promote a sensible conversation — outside the industry — of the merits and safety of lead.

“It’s hard to get political people, let alone ordinary ones, to understand what an inconsistent view they have on lead. They want to ban it from the European Union but still drive cars,” one battery veteran told Batteries International recently.

“They worry about infi nitesimal levels of lead in the blood while the battery itself powers the most remorseless killing machine on the planet.”

But there are sensational stories afoot which while they are not positive about lead, are distinctly dis-missive about lithium. The raising of recent fears of cabin fi res in passenger aircraft — caused by short-circuiting laptops and mobile phones — is a story that is about to run and run.

The Dreamliner scare of a year and a half ago might soon become a sideline given that some people are suggesting that there could be as many as one laptop fi re in a plane each month.

If that’s the case it’ll be another unexpected conse-quence of the kind poor Tom Midgley suffered.

In his instance, he was unlucky to the end — “the man who had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth’s history” according to one historian — met a sorry fate. Crippled by polio in his 50s he invented an elabo-rate system of pulleys to make himself mobile. He died from strangulation in his own network of strings.


WELCOME TO EDINBURGH

Traces of bronze and iron age remains can be found under Edinburgh Castle, atop the ancient volcanic mound, that dominates the city.

Nowadays Edinburgh is as much known for its lively culture as its his-toric buildings. Each year, for exam-ple, its international arts festival dou-bles the population to a million for the month of August.

Perhaps the best known part of this is the 25 day Fringe festival where co-medians and actors from across the UK, with a good representation from around the world, perform across the City in search of laughter, fame and, of course, money.

And in December the town hosts the biggest New Year street party in the world. Better known as Hogma-nay some 100,000 revellers gather to watch the new year in with fi reworks, dancing and music. Since Hogmanay traditionally lasts the full New Year’s Day (and January 2 is a national holi-day), it is also the scene of determined — some in the city would even say heroic — drinking.

But Edinburgh — or Auld Reekie as it used to be called, meaning Old Smokey for the haze of coal fi res that lingered over the city — has a tremen-dous wealth of cultural and fascinat-ing things.

Where to go in Auld Reekie

The best way to get around Edinburgh is on foot. Driving can be a nightmare in the city centre due to the one-way system and bus only routes. Tour guides recommend wearing comfortable shoes as the city still has a lot of cobbled streets.

Alternatively, one day cards costing £3.50 will allow you to

travel on the bus and tram network. Since May 2014 a new tram line

has operated between the city centre and the airport.

There are also hop on, hop off tour buses, that can be picked up outside of Edinburgh Waverley, the central train station. For this you also get a guided tour of the city.

GETTING AROUND: NOT A CITY FOR HIGH HEELS

So, welcome to Edinburgh — “it’s what Paris ought to be” said the poet Robert Louis

Stevenson (though being born there he may have been a shade biased). Edinburgh is

the ancient capital of Scotland and a city that boasts a history that predates London.

Or Rome for that matter.

One of the earliest photos of Edinburgh Castle soldiers, here sometime around 1845


WELCOME TO EDINBURGH

Edinburgh Castle

This dominates the city skyline and sits on an extinct volcanic plug. There has been a royal castle on the spot since the reign of David I in the 12th century. And possibly much earlier. A map by Ptolemy in the second century AD talks about an inhabited ‘rocky place’ around this spot. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Scotland, with well over one million visitors each year. Last admission to the cas-tle is 5pm. It shuts at 6pm.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse

This has been the principal residence of the kings and queens of Scotland since the 16th century. It is Queen Elizabeth II’s offi cial residence in Scotland. On view are the apartments where Mary, Queen of Scots lived. She was executed by the fi rst Queen Elizabeth in 1587.

St Giles Cathedral

A church on this spot may have been built in the 1120s but was destroyed in a fi re and rebuilt in the 14th

century — although it was an effort by the then royal family to spread Catholicism after the reformation it became (and remains) the heart of Scottish Presbyterianism.

The Royal Mile

Not a real mile this one! — the UK forced the Scots to adopt English miles in 1845 — but this is a Scots one (that’s 1.12 English miles). This lively street in the heart of the city is well worth a stroll and it’s one of the most famous in the world.

• A night to remember — or to forget

Perhaps predictable for the battery industry’s love of electrolyte testing is the city’s Scotch Whisky Experience. This is situated just below Edinburgh Castle and is dedicated to the 300-year history of Scotch whisky. Cultured whisky drinkers may also enjoy The Macallan Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour, which takes in the famous and infamous pubs of Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns. Curiously this omits the fact that JK Rowling wrote her fi rst Harry Potter novel from an Edinburgh coffee shop.

• A tribute to the fallen (in the US civil war)

In the Old Calton Burial Ground, in the centre of Edinburgh, there is a memorial to the Scottish soldiers who died in the American Civil War and a statue of Abraham Lincoln, the fi rst one erected outside the US.

• Ahoy there me hearties! The Royal Yacht Britannia

served Queen Elizabeth II from 1954-1997 and is the last in a long line of royal yachts. Its new permanent home is at Ocean Terminal in the ancient port of nearby Leith. Almost anyone of any importance from presidents to kings will have dined on the Britannia at some point.

• And for the green fi ngered Princes Street Gardens,

situated in the city centre, boasts the world’s oldest fl oral clock and the Royal Botanic Garden contains the UK’s tallest Palm House.

The Royal Mile is the spine of Old Town with Edinburgh Castle at the top and The Palace of Holyroodhouse and the new Scottish Parliament building at the bottom. St Giles Cathedral, John Knox House, the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Centre and the Mercat Cross are located on the Royal Mile.

Princes Street runs parallel to the Royal Mile, a short walk away. It is the main street in Edinburgh and separates The Old Town (the mediæval city) and The New Town which was built between 1765 and 1850.

The Old and New Towns are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

AND SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

THE OLD AND THE NEW

Here are some of the must-sees:

Specialists in the design and manufacturing of Battery Filling and Finshing equipment.

Our systems have

• automatic fi lling processes controlled by a fl ow meter

• semi-automatic handling

• vacuum supported

• 12V fi lling with the patented VACBOX system

• Modular, expandable system

Interfaces with KUSTAN’s mixing processes effortlessly

CMWTEC and KUSTAN

PUZZLED? TOGETHER

Specialists in manufacturing complete mixing units for production of sulphuric acid gel.

Aersoil ® 200V is used for demanding requirements to deliver top quality plants.

• Highly resistant to chemicals• Suitable for low media

temperatures• Robust version• Long life service.

Interfaces with CMW battery fi lling equipment effortlessly

Two companies working hand in hand to bring you an effortless turnkey solution.

KUSTAN GmbH & Co. KG An der Landwehr 3, D-45883 GelsenkirchenPhone: +49 209 94077-0 [email protected] www.kustan.de

Prof. Hermann-Klare-Str. 10, D-07407 RudolstadtPhone: +49 3672 3489-0 [email protected] www.kustan.de

solving the puzzle for you

WE HAVE THE SOLUTION

technologie GmbHGrossmannswiese 14, D-65594 Runkel-EnnerichPhone: +49 (0) 6431 9 92 40 [email protected] www.cmwtec.de

VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

First a warm welcome to 14 ELBC and Edinburgh for what I’m antici-pating will be another stimulating and, I hope, an important event in the development of the lead-acid battery market. These are exciting times for our industry. We’re surrounded by challenges — and opportunities — on a number of fronts.

I’ve been enthusiastic about these conferences since our very fi rst one in 1988 (in fact I’ve attended and been involved in every one of them!).

The fi rst conference was held in Paris at a time when we at the Inter-national Lead Association saw the need for a technical event that could bring our industry together. And as a matter of fact, at the time we did not envisage it as the fi rst of a long-run-

ning series of conferences. We called it “Lead Battery Power for the 90s”.

By comparison with today’s events it was a comparatively simple affair — we assembled what we thought were the best and most interesting developments in the lead acid battery business and then let the event hap-pen.

Without seeming over-congratu-latory (to be fair, we didn’t realise how successful it would be!) we had around 200 delegates who were en-thusiastic about the meeting. At that time our delegates were mostly from Europe, which is why the following conference in 1990 was rebranded as the 2nd ELBC.

Since then we have held an ELBC conference every two years (we as-sociate closely with the sister Asian Battery Conference series in the in-between years), and the range and number of our non-European del-egates has grown enormously. In part this is due to demographic change as battery manufacturing has moved to-wards Asia, but it’s also indicative of the greater globalization within our business.

It’s odd to think that in those days the lead-acid battery industry was

A personal message from David Wilson, chairman of 14 ELBC and who has

We’re an industry that appears to be under attack on all sides by challenging new chemistries and products. However, realistically, this isn’t strictly

true — the fact remains that the sophistication and technology behind lead-acid batteries, from the latest manufacturing processes to ever better batteries, has

never advanced so quickly.

To Edinburgh


VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

far more fragmented than today and there was no real challenge from al-ternative chemistries, although we were of course aware that new energy storage types were on their way. We felt there was a need for a unifying force.

And, although, since then, compet-ing conferences have emerged we’ve stayed committed to trying to play a vital part in the networking and com-munication needs within our industry.

Moreover, although we’ve seen a staggering growth in the size of our conferences and exhibitions, we’ve re-mained true to our ideal that our pur-pose is to serve the lead-acid battery community rather than make gains from it. It’s worth stressing that the ILA is a not-for-profi t association — our purpose is to promote our indus-try, not make a profi t from it.

So our conferences have remained true to this ideal — the idea that by bringing ourselves together we can learn from each other and advance the whole lead-acid community fur-ther, both from the point of view of technology and in exploring new business markets.

We’re an industry that appears to be under attack on all sides by chal-

lenging new chemistries and prod-ucts. However, realistically, this isn’t strictly true — the fact remains that the sophistication and technology be-hind lead-acid batteries, from the lat-est manufacturing processes to ever better batteries, has never advanced so quickly.

Moreover, as research from our ALABC colleagues and elsewhere shows, there is a world of opportuni-ties still waiting to be discovered in, for example, the addition of carbon additives to the negative active mass of the lead-acid battery electrode. Real changes to controlling sulfation, improving cycleability and providing longer-lasting power continue to fl ow from this.

Although the competition is real, the fact remains that overall lead-acid’s leadership continues effectively unchallenged. It shows that it is a long way from being dismissed — as people have been wrongly saying for almost as many years as I’ve been in the business — as yesterday’s battery.

Oddly enough, we’re seeing new life in avenues of energy storage that had hardly been thought of when the fi rst ELBC met in Paris.

Who, for example, could have fore-

seen that lead-acid batteries would take on a new and even more impor-tant role in the automotive market with the arrival of stop-start and re-gen braking?

Perhaps that’s why the two presen-tations I’m most looking for at the conference are going to be held on the fi rst morning.

We have Julian Allwood, a well-respected Cambridge University pro-fessor and a key member of the Inter-national Panel on Climate Change, who will deliver a talk called Climate Change Mitigation, Lead and Energy Storage, which will give an overview of this most important subject. Taking that with Pat Moseley’s presentation on Global Warming and Lead–Car-bon Batteries should, I’m sure, show the key role our industry will play in shaping the future!

These are exciting times for our in-dustry and I truly believe that events such as 14ELBC give us a great chance to work cooperatively for the greater good of our industry.

been involved in the conference and exhibition since it started in 1988.

Edinburgh joins the list of sparkling cities to hold the lead acid battery’s fi nest — Paris 2012, Istanbul 2010, Warsaw 2008

and beyond…


Meet the team

Claire Ronnie,

offi ce manager

and subscriptions

Claire’s our unfl appable person — she’s the go-to girl for subscriptions or account enquiries. Go ahead and challenge her!

Antony Parselle,

page designer

Better known in the offi ce as ‘Ant’ he’s been working in magazine design and layout since the early 1990s. Not so good on showing his best side however

June Moutrie,

business

development

manager

She’s our accounting Wunderkind who deals with all things fi nancial — a kind of mini Warren Buffett.

Jan Darasz,

cartoonist

Jan has an international reputation as a cartoonist able to making anything — including an electrolyte! — funny. And as for LiCFePO

4 ...

Kevin Desmond,

batteries historian

Actually more than just a historian on batteries as he’s written about many things. He’s the inspiration behind our Batteries Hero section.

Mike Halls,

editor

Mike, a former journalist with the UK newspaper the Financial Times, has been involved in journalism, publishing and print for three decades. “I’m particularly fond of writing about the batteries industry,” he says. “It’s an unusual mixture of being fast-paced but slow to change — and friendly too. What’s more there’s always something more to learn.”

Karen Hampton,

publisher

In her recent years of working within the battery business Karen has become a well known fi gure at conferences — not least as our social butterfl y. “My job,” she says, “is to get the maximum benefi t for our advertisers to make sure their name and brand is out there, while maintaining the integrity, fairness and excellence our publication is renowned for.”

THE BIG DIRECTORY ADVERTISING EDITORIAL & EVENT GUIDES Karen Hampton Mike Halls Advertising

Tel: +44 (0) 1787 329 722 +44 (0) 1787 329 721 +44 (0) 1787 329 720

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Reception: +44 (0) 1 787 329 720 • www.batteriesinternational.com • Fax +44 1 787 329 730

Mustard Seed Publishing Ltd, 10 Temple Bar Business Park, Strettington Lane, Strettington PO18 0TU, UK • Registered in England 5976361

Bringing the industry together www.batteriesinternational.com

John Petersen,

columnist John, a securities lawyer with over 30 years’ commercial experience, is not a cynic by nature — more a realist who sees the absurdity in many of our endeavours — especially some of our more corporate ones!

Wyn Jenkins,

Supplements editor

Don’t let the boyish charm deceive, Wyn’s been a journalist and respected editor on leading fi nancial titles for some 20 years. When not heading his own publications fi rm, Seren Global Media, he looks after our supplements.

VIEWPOINT: ILA


A look through the programme pag-es of the 14th European Lead Bat-tery Conference reveals the current strength of the lead battery industry and the latest innovations that prom-ise an even brighter future.

And this year’s conference theme Towards Better Energy Storage Sus-tainability with lead batteries high-lights, in particular, the important role of lead batteries in delivering sustainable energy storage solutions in the years to come.

As the voice of the global lead in-dustry ILA, together with the Ad-vanced Lead Acid Battery Consor-tium (ALABC), plays a vital role in supporting the industry to achieve its potential, and you will be able to fi nd out more at our ELBC exhibition stand (35).

ELBC itself, organized by ILA, is an important part of our work, bringing together key technical, manufacturing, marketing, R&D personnel and users to discuss and examine the strategic,

Lead batteries are essential, sustainable and innovative and delivering these powerful messages to stakeholders is something that the International Lead Association has at the top of its agenda— Andy Bush,

ILA managing director

Ensuring a bright future for lead batteries

Andy Bush, managing director at the International Lead Association, looks at the ways the organization is supporting lead’s most

important application


VIEWPOINT: ILA

technical and commercial issues of greatest importance to the lead-acid battery industry.

Today lead batteries are essential for delivering power to society and are by far the dominant technology. More than 1 billion vehicles worldwide rely on lead-based batteries, while 90% of batteries now used in industrial appli-cations, such as critical back-up power in hospitals and telecommunications, are lead-based.

Lead batteries are also an innovative technology, for instance it is predicted that by 2020 they will account for 25% of the global battery-based grid storage market and 37 million vehi-cles on the road will have advanced lead batteries — uses that contribute to sustainability targets by helping to reduce global CO2 emissions.

Recent research conducted by MIT

has also shown that perovskite-based solar cells, made from recycled lead, has reached more than 19% effi ciency in converting sunlight to electricity — fi ve times better than fi ve years ago.

Lead batteries are essential, sustain-able and innovative and delivering these powerful messages to stakehold-ers that will play a role in the future success of the industry, whether they be vehicle and battery manufacturers or regulators and legislators, is some-thing that the International Lead As-sociation has at the top of its agenda.

Essential batteriesThere is a compelling story to tell about lead-based batteries and the ILA is currently working to ensure a much greater recognition of this. Lead bat-teries probably represent the best ex-ample of the so-called ‘circular econo-

my’ in action, where materials present in products at the end of their useful life can be used again and again.

It is estimated that 97% of lead bat-teries are collected and recycled in Eu-rope, and in the US the fi gure recently hit 99%.

The lead recovered can be used in new batteries an infi nite number of times without any loss of quality and when we consider the ability of lead batteries to deliver power safely, reli-ably and cost effectively across a wide range of applications, it can confi dent-ly claim to be a product that is both essential and sustainable.

Sustainable batteriesWith attention increasingly being paid to the environmental impact of prod-ucts throughout their entire life cycle, including factors such as extraction, fabrication, recycling and the use of energy and transportation, the ILA project group also carried out a life cycle assessment of lead-based batter-ies, reaching several signifi cant conclu-sions.

From an end-of-life perspective, the life cycle assessment study found that the high recycling rates of lead-based batteries dramatically reduces their environmental impact. In the US alone, lead battery recycling keeps 2.4 million tons of batteries out of landfi lls and it is estimated that up to 93% of a lead battery can be recycled, including the casing and electrolyte, in addition to the lead and lead compounds pre-sent in the battery.

This is done without any loss of quality in the lead that can then be re-used in the manufacture of new lead-based batteries.

In this closed loop system there is only a limited opportunity for lead to be released into the environment or to present a risk to human health. These factors contributed to the study fi nd-ing that lead-based battery production has a minimal environmental impact in relation to the overall lifecycle im-pact of vehicle production.

Another important fi nding of the study was that advanced lead-based batteries used in start-stop systems off-set any environmental impact caused through their production by the con-siderable savings they allow in global warming potential during use.

Over the lifetime of a vehicle that employs an advanced lead-based battery there are likely to be signifi cant emission savings of CO2 equivalents due to a lowering of fuel consumption by 5%-10% compared

“Lead use in batteries is a fantastic example of a circular economy in action — something that policy makers around the world increasingly recognize as being necessary to ensure a sustainable future for society.” — Alistair Davidson, ILA technical manager


VIEWPOINT: ILA

to a conventional vehicle. This will equate to a saving of 25 billion kg CO2 equivalent saved by 2020 through start-stop micro-hybrid vehicles with advanced lead batteries.

A separate LCA comparison study published in 2010 by Argonne Na-tional Laboratory in the US conclud-ed that lead-based batteries had the lowest cradle to gate environmental impact of all battery technologies con-sidered.

The study compared life-cycle data from manufacturing lead, nickel, so-dium and lithium-based batteries, and reported that lead-based batteries had the lowest production energy, and lowest emissions of carbon dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and volatile organic carbons.

ILA technical manager, Alistair Da-vidson, who worked on these studies, says: “Lead use in batteries is a fantas-tic example of a circular economy in action — something that policy mak-ers around the world increasingly rec-ognize as being necessary to ensure a sustainable future for society.”

Innovative batteriesSupporting the development of lead battery technology and spreading the message that these batteries offer in-novative solutions to the ever evolving energy storage market is an activity of the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Con-sortium — a self-fi nancing project of the ILA.

ALABC research and development has been applied to a range of appli-cations from stationary energy storage to start-stop and hybrid electric vehi-cle systems. A good example of recent work is the LC Super Hybrid project, developed and demonstrated with support from ALABC, which uses ad-vanced lead-carbon batteries and oth-er electrical components to increase engine effi ciency, lower carbon emis-sions and boost performance in 12V and 48V mild/micro hybrid vehicles.

Over the course of its 20+ years of research and development, the AL-ABC programme has increased the power available from advanced lead batteries signifi cantly, while demon-strating life of at least 150,000 miles in hybrid applications — a distance frequently accepted as the typical life of a vehicle powertrain.

The consortium continues to use its R&D model to optimize battery performance not only for automotive applications, but also for renewable energy sources, smart grids and

COMPARING BATTERY TECHNOLOGIES FOR AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS

The project generated a number of reports including A Review of Bat-tery Technologies for Automotive Applications. This concluded that lead-based batteries in SLI (starter, lighter, ignition) battery applications will remain the most widespread energy storage system in automo-tive applications for the foreseeable future, with no alternative technology available to challenge this position, either economically or technically.

Among the many advantages the study highlights is the unparalleled ability of a lead battery to start an engine at extreme temperatures, plus its durability and cost effective-ness.

Lead batteries are used in all conventional vehicles, in hybrid ve-hicles, where the batteries provide start-stop functionality, and also in those vehicles, which have a lim-ited amount of electric driving, but still have a conventional combustion engine. Furthermore, lead-based

batteries are needed in full electric vehicles.

Although several battery chem-istries are available for vehicle pro-pulsion, the study makes clear that lead-based 12V batteries are es-sential in these electric vehicles to provide the power for features such as air-conditioning, entertainment systems and safety features, while working alongside other battery technologies.

The timing of this study will also enable ILA and its partners to put forward a strong case for lead-based batteries to maintain their exemption within the EU End of Life Vehicle Directive’s wider ban on lead in light-duty vehicles, which is due for review in 2015.

On this and other areas of EU leg-islation ILA continues to advocate for a legislative framework that appro-priately recognizes the social, eco-nomic and environmental benefi ts of lead-based battery technologies.

ILA recently partnered with Europe’s automotive and industrial battery producers, plus the vehicle manufacturer associations of Europe, Japan and South Korea on a signifi cant project examining the case for the continued use of lead batteries in automotive applications.

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VIEWPOINT: ILA

uninterruptible power supplies. As a result of the work of ALABC and its member companies, advanced lead-based batteries are providing cost-effective solutions to meeting carbon emission reduction targets and are competing effectively with other battery chemistries for emerging energy storage markets.

Continuous improvementA sustainable future for lead batteries requires not only continuous improve-ment in battery technology, but in the management of the health and envi-ronmental risks of lead throughout its life cycle. Here too ILA, along with

the battery associations EUROBAT and Battery Council International, is increasingly taking a leadership role.

An example of this is the setting of voluntary blood lead reduction targets for employees of ILA member compa-nies that go beyond current regulatory requirements.

In Europe and North America bat-tery manufacturing companies have already agreed to a target that no em-ployee shall have a blood lead exceed-ing 30μg/dl by the end of 2016. This same target was also adopted recently by members of the European Lead Sheet Industry Association (ELSIA) and ILA is also close to launching a

similar worldwide initiative for its lead producing members.

Meanwhile through the work of the International Lead Management Cent-er (ILMC) practical help and guidance is given to countries in the developing world and those in transition on the safe production and recycling of lead batteries.

ILA and ILMC have also produced a series of guidance notes Working Safely with Lead, which explain in a non-technical way how to manage and min-imize the risks of lead exposure. These complement other tools that are being used by ILMC in conjunction with agencies, governments, regulators and NGOs in countries ranging from Costa Rica and Senegal to India and China.

AdvocacyDespite the potential for lead-based batteries signifi cant challenges remain, in particular the increasing regulatory burden on the industry and a call by some to replace or substitute lead-based products with alternatives.

One recent example is the listing by the EU Commission of 21 lead com-pounds as substances of very high con-cern and the subsequent proposal to nominate for authorization four lead compounds (lead monoxide, lead te-troxide, pentalead tetraoxide sulphate, and tetralead trioxide sulphate) which are critical raw materials in the manu-facture of lead-based batteries.

Such authorization under REACH reinforces the misconception that the manufacturing and use of lead-based batteries represents such a risk to health that substitution with other chemistries is the preferred option.

ILA has therefore conducted exten-sive advocacy initiatives recently, in partnership with other associations such as EUROBAT, to target EU mem-ber states and the European Com-mission. These have highlighted the signifi cant societal and environmen-tal benefi ts of lead batteries, the ef-fectiveness of existing regulation and the voluntary initiatives that industry is implementing to ensure that lead is appropriately managed.

In addition ILA has indicated that REACH authorization will potentially damage Europe’s ability to manufac-ture lead batteries in future, while add-ing little additional protection to hu-man health or the environment.

Through these initiatives and many others besides, ILA is working on be-half of the global lead and lead battery industries to support a long, sustain-able and prosperous future.

Lead recovered can be used in new batteries an infi nite number of times without any loss of quality — here old batteries arriving at Berzelius for recycling in plastic leak proof containers

In Europe and North America battery manufacturing companies have already agreed to a target that no employee shall have a blood lead exceed-ing 30μg/dl by the end of 2016.


PROFILE: ALABC

For more than 20 years, the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium has accomplished what few international cooperatives ever could — success-fully pool together the resources of its membership to advance an estab-lished technology to compete in fu-ture emerging markets… and all in a pre-competitive environment.

Now, the ALABC is moving for-ward into an era where the research behind advancing the technology isn’t enough. The market is requiring proof that it will do what the lead-acid industry is saying it will, and now the consortium is stepping up to show that resulting development is real, tangible and ready for the world.

The ALABC and its member com-panies have invested substantial funds in recent years to move the fruits of their research from the lab to the real world by initiating a series of automotive demonstration projects.

Real world performanceOne such project is demonstrating the performance of the UltraBattery in an HEV under real-world conditions (160,000 miles with no signifi cant cell degradation). Another is focused on the ability of carbon-enhanced lead batteries in a micro/mild HEV system to enhance the performance of down-sized engines and signifi cantly lower carbon emissions at minimal cost.

Yet another explores the perfor-mance of advanced lead-acid batteries

in 48V architectures. All are yielding successful results and valuable data, and they are achieving their intended purpose — drawing the attention of major OEMs.

Both Hyundai and Ford have al-ready shown signifi cant interest in further developing lead-acid based systems (in a 48V architecture with diesel engines) in cooperative demon-stration projects with ALABC and its associates, and Chrysler is interested in the potential of the consortium’s natural gas hybrid demonstration with lead-carbon batteries.

CollaborationThe demonstrations have also caused other OEMs to at least realize the potential of advanced lead-acid bat-teries. In addition, the ALABC is fi nd-ing other partnerships that will allow it to continue these demonstration projects without absorbing too much from its R&D budget.

For example, the consortium is joining with companies in the natu-ral gas industry (Southern California Gas Company and AGL Resources) to demonstrate a natural gas hybrid RAM truck that uses lead-carbon batteries to reduce cost and fuel con-sumption for fl eet operators.

While the ALABC’s main focus continues to be the research that has advanced and continues to advance lead-acid battery technology, the con-sortium’s leadership has also realized

that if it doesn’t play a signifi cant role in putting this technology before the right audiences (such as OEMs, automotive engineers, government offi cials), all the momentum they have gained over the past 20+ years could be lost.

It is evident to most within the in-dustry that lead-acid battery technol-ogy has benefi tted from incredible progress since the ALABC was organ-ized in 1992, and now that interest in alternative fuel and hybrid electric vehicles is growing, it is also impera-tive that the industry strikes while the iron is hot and assure lead-acid’s place in the evolving automotive mar-ketplace while this interest is peaking.

It is this particular situation that has placed the ALABC into the role of balancing research and market development. To maintain that bal-ance, the consortium has refocused its energies into more opportunities for technical knowledge sharing and practical scientifi c research.

ILAB seminarIn fact, it is organizing for the fi rst time a technical seminar on Innova-tions in Lead-Acid Batteries or ILAB in North Carolina, from November 19-21. This event is the latest effort to provide battery producers and en-gineers a venue to discuss the latest topics on innovation: from improv-ing and demonstrating the perfor-mance of advanced lead-acid storage batteries to quantitative modeling of carbon-enhanced lead-acid batteries and advanced technologies for start-stop and micro-hybrid vehicles.

It is also intended to re-freshen the pool of industry experts by invit-ing younger electrochemists into the world of lead-acid innovation.

Even more, the ALABC is taking steps to build a clear strategy and technology roadmap for the con-tinued expansion of ideas that will give way to an entirely different line of lead-based batteries for new and emerging markets

With a new president (David Wil-son), a new chairman (Tim Ellis of RSR Corporation), a new public af-fairs & marketing chairman (Paul Kolisnyk of Teck Metals), and a program manager (Boris Monahov) that is certainly no stranger to the nuances of electrochemistry, the consortium is well equipped to take a leadership role that the industry sorely needs — one that will strike the R&D balance and assure lead-acid’s place in today’s world of en-ergy storage innovation.

between research and development

Striking the right balance


PROFILE: BORIS MONAHOVPROFILE: BORIS MONAHOV

The scene. A packed auditorium this June. The event: an award ceremony at the internationally famous LABAT conference held every three years in Albena, Bulgaria. As the two winners of the Gaston Planté medal — perhaps the most respected accolade in the lead acid battery industry — are announced, the joint winners, the ALABC’s Boris Monahov and Eberhard Meissner from JCI head to the stage as the auditorium bursts into applause.

For the 60-year-old Monahov, his life had come full circle. He had been born literally a handful of miles down the road in the cosmopolitan

New summits yet to climbWhether one believes that the life scientifi c is a pilgrimage or just a journey, it is rarely a clearly marked out route with a fi xed start and set destination. As such, so has been the life of Boris Monahov, now fi nding further acclaim for his work at the ALABC, writes Kevin Desmond.

“I would like to enable more ALABC customers and partners to fi nd out about the benefi ts of modern lead-acid batteries and the potential they bring to us to a brighter and better future.”



PROFILE: BORIS MONAHOV

seaport of Varna, nestled tight to the Black Sea coast.

But this is more than the story of a local boy making good.

Rather it was one of a journey that began on March 24, 1954 and a fi nal destination, as he himself will candidly confess, which is as yet not known.

Boris Ivanov Monahov will also be the fi rst to admit that he had a lucky childhood in terms of preparing him for a career in electrochemistry — both his parents were highly respected scientists.

Indeed for half a century, Boris’s fa-ther Ivan was one of Bulgaria’s most active research geologists, and one of the founders of the country’s oil and gas industry. He was involved in fi eld work and academic research at the Institute of minerals of the Council of Ministers and in teaching as an associ-ate professor at the State University of Sofi a known as St Kliment Ohridski. His contributions were published in over 130 articles, three monographs and couple of general reviews.

Boris’s mother Liljana was an asso-ciate professor in geochemistry at the Institute of Minerals of the Council of Ministers and managed a special-ized lab for studying the composition of underground waters as an indica-tor of the probability of fi nding oil or gas in the drilling where the samples come from. She had over 50 articles published.

If his home background was a sci-entifi c one, his school friends were also interested in these things — in the 1970s, in Bulgaria, physics and physicists were considered for the elite of the educated. “Attending the high school, I had three friends who shared my love of mathematics and phys-ics,” says Monahov. “Now they are all prominent physicists, two of them in Bulgaria and one in Florida.

“In the upper high school I attended physics seminars, organized by the University of Sofi a for interested high school students. There we had lectures presented by leading professors and were made familiar with the base of the mathematical methods used in theoretical physics.”

Between 1975 and 1980, Mona-hov read solid state physics at the St Kliment Ohridski university in Sofi a eventually obtaining a masters.

Towards the end of his studies he had an internship at the Institute of Metal Science of the Bulgarian Acad-emy of Sciences.

It was fortuitous moment for the young Monahov and a turning point

Monahov interests: of mountains and mysteries. Stepping on the ruins of the ancient fortuneteller place Perperikon at the feet of Rhodopa mountain to the south-east of the city of Plovdiv (ancient name Phillipopolis — the capital of Phillip II, the father of Alexander the Great), Bulgaria.

Studying the microstructure of lead-carbon foam negative plates at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, the Frederick Seitz Materials research Lab of the University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, using a scanning/trans-mission electron microscope with EDS microprobe.



in his life. It was then he met his life-time mentor, friend — and eventual colleague — professor Detchko Pav-lov, even then regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on lead acid battery chemistry.

“Meeting professor Pavlov proved to be a critical stage in my education,” he says. “He and his team were conduct-ing electrochemical studies on lead electrodes. It was all highly interesting but importantly I regard the 25 years I spent with the professor and his team as key to improving my understanding of how research should be tackled.”

MarriageMeanwhile, other things were brew-ing. His courtship of his neighbour, a mechanical engineer and scientist called Natasha Arsova, resulted in their marriage in 1981.

From 1980 until 2004, Monahov

carried out fundamental and applied electrochemical research on model lead electrodes, model lead-acid cells and advanced lead-acid batteries. He also specialized in lead-acid battery electrochemistry with professors Mar-garet Maya and Paolo Spinelli at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy in 1982, and with professor ZA Rotenberg at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow from 1986 to 1987.

His linguistic skills — Monahov is a polyglot speaking Bulgarian, German, Russian and English and has smatter-ings of other languages — have ena-bled him to move seamlessly among the scientifi c community.

In 1994, he obtained his PhD in electrochemistry and electrochemi-cal power sources from the Bulgar-ian Academy of Sciences in Sofi a. He became an associate professor at the academy in 1996.

During this last decade in Bulgaria his academic researches and contri-butions were intensive. These include exploring what we know about the electrochemical models and under-standing about the infl uence alloy additives of antimony, tin, silver and calcium on the properties of the cor-rosion layer and of the positive active mass.

He equally helped to demonstrate the importance of the microstructure, phase composition and hydration of the corrosion layer and the layers formed between it and the positive ac-tive mass for the performance of the positive plate.

As well as this, he researched the processes of oxygen evolution in the positive plate and their dependence on potential, temperature and alloy addi-tives; about the effects of the concen-tration of the sulphuric acid solution (the electrolyte) on the properties of the corrosion layer and the positive active material, about the way oxy-gen recombines at the negative plate, about the way thermal runaway devel-ops in lead-acid batteries and how can it be suppressed and avoided.

Published papersOf the 60 papers Monahov has pub-lished, he says these three are the most important for him. • D Pavlov, B Monahov, M Maja and

N Penazzi, Mechanism of Action of Sn on the Passivation Phenomena in the Lead-Acid Battery Positive Plate (the Sn-free Effect), Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 136, (1989).

• D Pavlov and B Monahov, Mecha-nism of the Elementary Electro-chemical Processes Taking Place During Oxygen Evolution on the Lead Dioxide Electrode, Journal of the Electrochemical Society. 143 (1996).

• B Monahov, D Pavlov, A Kirchev and S Vasilev, Infl uence of the pH of the H2SO4 solution on the phase composition of the PbO2 active mass and of the PbO2 anodic layer formed during cycling of lead elec-trodes, Journal of Power Sources, 113/2, (2003).What is perhaps less well known af-

ter any catalogue of his research con-tributions is his modest approach to quite formidable achievements. If you ask him what breakthroughs he has made since the 1980s in the improve-ment of lead-acid battery technology, he’ll be disparaging. “I didn’t make any breakthroughs,” he says. “If you Boris and son Alex in the Rhodopa mountains, Bulgaria

Three distinguished Monahovs — Boris with parents Liljana and Ivan



want to read about that kind of thing — and those who make them— you’d be better off reading the Nobel com-mittee press releases, or Forbes maga-zine!

“That said under the scientifi c guid-ance of professor Pavlov I was able to contribute to the new and deeper understanding of some important processes involved in the operation of lead-acid batteries.”

Monahov might well have stayed on in Sofi a — Bulgaria then, as now, re-mains a world centre for lead acid bat-tery research. But after the Monahov’s son Alex, a high school junior, was diagnosed with diabetes, they sought better medical care.

Since, arguably, one of the best plac-es in the world for medical treatment is the US, they started to see what was available.

And here good fortune stepped in. The US runs a government lottery

that allows those that want to live and work in America to win a US green card. The aim is to inject diversity into the immigrant population. Natasha, undaunted by the odds stacked against them, applied for the right to enter the lottery. Random selection by the com-puter did the rest. By the fall of 2004 the family had obtained a green card.

They emigrated to Peoria, Illinois — full US citizenship came six years later. That November Monahov began as a senior electrochemist in the start-up fi rm, Firefl y Energy.

Research at Firefl yWorking with Kurtis Kelley, the found-er of the fi rm, he became involved in helping design the negative and posi-tive carbon-graphite foam based plates of Firefl y’s 3D and 3D2 battery plates; creating new cell designs and paste recipes; developing new formation, charge and test profi les; as well as in research on the properties of lead, car-bon and lead dioxide electrodes in sul-phuric acid solution. Monahov holds three patents related to this work.

In one of them, the Firefl y research-ers wrote with the keen technical fer-vour that enthused their mission: “We, the authors of this patent believe, that one day this method will help battery producers to get higher capacity and longer cycle life of their products in a very inexpensive way, and without changing much the elaborated produc-tion technology.”

Unfortunately it was not to happen. Or not then, although the technology may happen in the future.

In March 2010, Firefl y Energy fi led

for bankruptcy. The multi-million dollar funding required to perfect the technology in the start-up company was extensive. And although a small assembly line — and battery sales to a local bus company — proved that the company had made the leap from the laboratory bench to the factory fl oor, this was unable to provide the rev-enues needed to sustain it.

The fi rm’s cash crunch came on the heels of the global fi nancial crisis which fi nally pushed the fi rm over.

Although a phoenix company emerged that October, called Firefl y International Energy, and took over some of the assets and the bankruptcy estate, it was too late.

Laid off, Boris and Natasha Mona-hov moved from Peoria to Durham, North Carolina where he took up the post of program manager of the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consor-tium, part of the International Lead Zinc Research Organization (ILZRO).

And here his tireless work for the ALABC has helped push the consor-tium’s already considerable achieve-ments, particularly its involvement in the development of the UltraBattery, into a wider sphere of operations.

The ALABC is a non-profi t interna-tional organization with 75 members worldwide from lead metal and lead-acid battery producing companies and industry suppliers.

It is the only large international R&D institution whose studies are focused specifi cally on enhancing the performance of lead-acid batteries in potentially new markets such as hybrid electric vehicles, energy stor-age and grid support systems, where the requirements of the batteries are

high and regular batteries have issues with performance and durability.

The ALABC program aims for the enhancement and design optimiza-tion of lead-carbon batteries and so increase their market position in tradi-tional and new markets.

When asked about his plans for the future, Monahov, just turned 60, char-acteristically remains focused on his work. “I would like to enable more ALABC customers and partners to fi nd out about the benefi ts of modern lead-acid batteries and the potential they bring to us to a brighter and bet-ter future.”

For relaxation, his early passion for Europe’s mountains remains. “I like to visit and spend time on them, and par-ticularly to take photos of the highest peaks of Europe,” he says.

TributePerhaps the last words should come from his long-term colleague, friend and guide Detchko Pavlov who paid tribute to Monahov for the Batteries International article. “Boris is talented and a highly intelligent person. He’s an open-minded, hard-working research-er who always maintains a mature and responsible approach to his tasks and manages and carries out in-depth in-vestigations at a variety of levels.

“His friendly manner and contagious enthusiasm belies his leadership skills which are based on the unique combi-nation of fl exibility, consistency in the pursuit of goals and natural empathy.”

With an extensive program of re-search and development ahead of Monahov and the ALABC, the fi nal achievements — the peaks in his ca-reer — are still in front of him.

Professor Detchko Pavlov, long-time friend, colleague and mentor


SOUNDBITES, SOUNDBITES

“Networking and plenty of interesting and fruitful discussions. Specifi cally, understanding the achievements in making lead-acid batteries more durable, as well as the needs and directions for future advancements.”

Paolina Atanassova, a senior executive at the Cabot Corporation in the US

“Exchanging ideas with other people involved in the lead-acid battery research and development activities and getting to know new partners with whom my organization could cooperate on some given topic.”

Grzegorz Pilatowicz, a team leader at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA)

“ELBC is one of the best forums to attend for anyone involved in, or having interest in, the lead acid battery industry. The number of suppliers, manufacturers and end users, along with numerous cutting-edge presentations, make ELBC the conference of choice for staying abreast of the latest technological and strategic advancements.”

Nick Desimone, director of Product Management at EnerG2

“The presentation of technical and marketing as well as seeing old friends and establishing new connections with other people.”

Shawn Peng, vice president of Leoch International Technology

“ELBC provides a venue where we can not only showcase our technology to hundreds of individuals deeply invested in energy storage markets, but also to fi nd new and exciting areas where our PbC product can make a difference.”

Jack Shindle, the vice president of engineering at Axion Power International

“Almost all ELBC presentations are great. The biggest benefi t for me is meeting all the battery value chain.”

Christophe Pillot, partner at director of Avicenne Energy

“The benefi ts are to see a major conference totally devoted to lead-acid batteries and to meet all the current players in the development of the system.”

Patrick Moseley, former president of the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium

“Learning about latest developments in the battery business and meeting peers.”

Friedrich Dempwolff, vice president of industry and governmental relations for Johnson Controls Power Solutions EMEA, and president of EUROBAT

“I’m hoping to understand the lead industry better so that I can help keep lithium ion batteries out of lead-acid recycling, and vice versa!”

Linda Gaines, a systems analyst at the Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National Laboratory

“The event combines the main roles players in the fi eld of science and encourages users of such batteries to also attend. This allows one to hear other researchers but also to establish links with particular end users. The conference also has the ALABC report back session beforehand.”

Ernst Ferg, an associate professor at the university lecturing in the fi eld of electrochemsitry and physical chemistry at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

“The conference allows researchers and manufactures to be on the same platform to engage and exchange information and ideas for future developments. And also as a very young researcher I will get to learn and see what other researchers across

What do you regard as the greatest benefi t of attending ELBC?

Grzegorz Pilatowicz

Nick Desimone

Shawn Peng

Christophe Pillot

Patrick Moseley Friedrich Dempwolff

Linda Gaines Paul Everill

“I’m hoping to understand the lead industry better so that I can help keep lithium ion batteries out of

lead-acid recycling, and vice versa!”

Linda Gaines, a systems analyst at the Center for Transportation Research at

Argonne National Laboratory


SOUNDBITES, SOUNDBITES

the world are doing, and that will enhance my interest not just on lead-acid batteries but energy systems as a whole.”

Bolo Lukanyo, a second year masters student at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

“At ELBC you can meet virtually all key people of the lead battery industry. Thus, there are numerous opportunities to meet battery experts from all over the world for discussions and talks. All important suppliers to the lead battery industry will be at ELBC. More than 100 exhibitors are expected to participate making it possible to see the latest developments and technologies with respect to equipment and materials. There are also a couple of very interesting papers. The presentations including discussions with the authors will give useful information about the progress in battery technology.”

Manfred Gelbke, the head of R&D and technical customer support at Akkumulatorenfabrik Moll Bad Staffelstein

“It is a great opportunity to present our company and new technology to a high skilled audience. It is a great possibility to maintain and increase the network in the battery industry.”

Björn Mentzer, vice president of marketing & sales, at Abertax Technology

“Meeting with so many professionals in one shot.”

Cesare Catelli, general manager and technical and R&D Manager at PC di Pompeo Catelli

“The biggest benefi t of attending the conference is meeting relevant and key people leading this industry.”

Dennis Been, systems sales manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Pyrotek in the Netherlands

“The ELBC continues to be THE battery summit in the European region. Among others our main reasons are: interesting presentations, high-level networking opportunities, a well assembled selection of exhibitors and further relevant international manufacturers from overseas joining as well.”

Max Mandt-Merck, business development manager at LAP

“As a supplier, it is the place where we can meet all customers in one week and move forward on on-going technical projects or current business. It’s also a good opportunity to show product development and keep being aware of the market novelty or trend.”

Sylvie Bayle, R&D manager in Bernard Dumas

“Learning about the latest innovations in the lead acid battery industry and meeting with other people from lead acid battery industry to share ideas.”

Kent Lancaster, vice president of sales for Oak Press Solutions

“ELBC brings together the most talented people in the industry to focus on topics such as industry trends, new technologies, and next generation materials. It is always great to hear about all of the new and exciting developments in the industry.“It consistently provides a world class forum for technical discussions surrounding lead acid battery systems. Only at ELBC can you talk to all of the industries leading scientists to learn about their latest research, or meet with dozens of suppliers to discuss their new product innovations.”

John Wertz, the global product development manager for Hollingsworth and Vose Battery Products

“ELBC presents an opportunity to go deeper than the surface into some really core areas of interest.”

John Wood, the chief executive of Ecoult

“ELBC is a very focussed forum for lead acid commercial and technical aspects with a unique concentration of suppliers, manufacturers and end users from around the world.”

Peter Stevenson, senior technical coordinator at Yuasa Battery Europe

“The networking opportunities and the industry exposure from presenting a paper.”

Ed Shaffer, chief executive of Advanced Battery Concepts

Manfred Gelbke

Cesare CatelliBjörn Mentzer

Max Mandt-MerckDennis Been

Kent LancasterSylvie Bayle

John WoodJohn Wertz

Ed Shaffer

“ELBC presents an opportunity to go deeper than the surface into some

really core areas of interest.”

John Wood,

chief executive of Ecoult


THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

One of the common themes touched upon by speakers several times in this the opening session of the conference will be climate change and, specifi cal-ly, the role batteries can play in help-ing governments achieve targets that have been set around greenhouse gas emissions and other challenges relat-ing to energy production and storage.

Julian Allwood, who from this Oc-

tober will be professor of engineering and the environment at the University of Cambridge, will deliver a presen-tation called Climate Change Mitiga-tion, Lead and Energy Storage, which will give an overview of the most re-cent fi ndings of the Intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about mitigation and explore the sig-nifi cance of the production and use of

lead in mitigation strategies.Allwood worked for 10 years for

Alcoa, before developing an academ-ic career, initially at Imperial College, and from 2000 in Cambridge. In par-allel with developing new manufac-turing technologies for metals, he has built up a research group looking at environmental systems and produc-tion. From 2009-2013 he held an

CLIMATE CHANGE without the irrationality

Some broad perspectives on the global outlook will kick-start 14ELBC at the opening session. Look for controversy as the discussion moves towards facing the realities — or not — of how climate change will affect the battery business.



EPSRC Leadership Fellowship, to ex-plore material effi ciency as a climate mitigation strategy – delivering the equivalent or better product but us-ing new material.

In 2013, he became director of the UK INDEMAND Centre, one of six national centres looking at energy demand reduction in the UK, with a focus on industry.

Allwood also leads the inter-discipli-nary BP-funded Foreseer programme looking at future resource stress, the NERC funded Hosana project look-ing at mitigating mineral criticality, the EPSRC-funded Precision Guided Flexible Forming project on new metal forming technologies, and is a co-leader of the EPSRC-funded WholeSEM project creating a na-tional whole-systems energy model for the UK. In total these projects have attracted funding of £18 million ($35 million) and employ around 60 people at nine universities, 25 of whom work with him in Cam-bridge.

Allwood was also a lead author of the 5th Assess-ment Report of the IPCC with a focus on mitigat-ing industrial emissions. He is chairman of the metal forming section of the International Acad-emy of Production Engi-neering CIRP.

AssessmentsThe IPCC published the third volume of its 5th Assessment Report in April 2014, summariz-ing the outcome of three years’ work by around 200 authors from around the world to assess op-tions for mitigation. The fi rst two volumes of this report, on the science and impacts of climate change respectively, were written by a panel of scientists and depended strongly on scientifi c evidence.

By contrast, the third volume on mitigation was written by an inter-disciplinary panel spanning econom-ics, engineering, business, policy and development studies among many other areas, to create a survey of un-derstanding of options for change.

“The challenge of this work is that the availability of technical options for change, the political or economic imperative to implement them, and the behavioural choices of users con-fl ict in many cases — there is consid-erable debate about the best path-ways to a lower emissions future,” says Allwood.

“In particular, there is a strong de-bate about whether action should depend primarily on as yet unready supply technologies, or on available but counter-cultural demand side op-tions.”

He will begin with an overview of

this debate, concentrating particular-ly on the physical options for change within the industry sector.

“In understanding the possible role of lead in a future carbon constrained world, we have to consider two fea-tures: the energy implications of lead production and recycling; and the value of lead in products,” he says.

“Although there hasn’t yet been a major study on the global impacts of lead production, the talk will in-troduce an approach that has been applied to steel and aluminium, with wide industrial and policy acceptance: a global mass fl ow analysis shows where the two metals are produced and used; energy analysis shows the

“In understanding the possible role of lead in a future carbon constrained world, we have to consider two features: the energy implications of lead production and recycling; and the value of lead in products” —

Allwood, Cambridge University

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LEAD SUPPLY: SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

Hawkes will deliver a presentation entitled Lead Supply Squeeze Fears – Fact or Fiction? which has been scheduled under the global outlook umbrella session on the fi rst day of the conference.

Hawkes says the dynamics around the supply of lead is a big issue at the moment.

One big factor is how the market has coped with the closure of Doe Run’s Herculaneum primary lead smelter at the end of last year. Although this had implications globally, the US market was expected to bear the brunt of the fall-out in terms of supply and de-mand. Moreover, the situation in the US was also made worse by a hard winter, a scenario that would have also hit battery stocks.

“Last year, the talk was all about what might happen post-closure. But that has now happened and it is more a case of the reality of how the markets have adjusted and are cop-ing in terms of supply and demand,” he says.

The immediate response came from traders who started importing higher levels of lead from all over the world. “However, despite the very cold winter, which provided the per-fect condition for killing lead acid bat-teries, and the closure of Herculane-um, there seems to be enough stock as things stand,” Hawkes says.

“But although they have been fi nd-ing enough lead so far, as stocks fur-ther run down, that could mean more tightness down the line.”

This also means the supply chain is more global and stretched than it has ever been posing risks for bat-tery makers because it is more vul-nerable to problems and dislocations that can potentially have far reaching affects.

The summer idling of the La Oroya smelter in Peru adds to consumer concerns over future supplies.

One of the knock on effects of this dynamic is that the price of scrap — spent lead-acid batteries — has soared in recent years as recycling and collection fi rms have cottoned

on to the higher value of lead con-tained within spent batteries. They have increased their selling prices, putting pressure on smelters’ profi t margins, in turn.

There has also been a move by disgruntled secondary smelters in North America to pricing lead based on scrap prices as opposed to us-ing the LME as a reference, though this has yet to gain any traction in Europe.

“Higher feed costs, combined with higher environmental compliance costs and new smelter capacity ad-ditions, have fi nally prompted smelt-ers to close,” Hawkes says.

There is no easy solution to this problem for the smelters, unless they

start buying scrap metal companies. It is possible, smelters could start doing this, he says.

“It is a misconception that scrap supplies are tight — the costs simply continue to rise because scrap de-mand is even greater and that means scrap is spread more thinly around the smelters. The topic is raised ev-ery year but basically why would the scrap companies take any less?

“So do the smelters buy them? That is something we could start to see. Otherwise, scrap prices will re-main high for the foreseeable future.”

He will also highlight other issues to watch globally that could infl uence global supply and demand. Austra-lian lead smelter Nyrstar recently an-nounced a A$514 million ($480 mil-lion) investment that will upgrade its lead smelter at Port Pirie in the state of South of Australia turning it into a cleaner operation.

The 120-year-old smelter, which employs about 800 people, will be transformed into an advanced met-als recovery and refi ning operation, reducing its toxic emissions. The Australian government will under-write the transformation project itself to a total of A$291 million.

Hawkes believes the upgrade is

There has also been a move by disgruntled secondary smelters in North America to pricing lead based on scrap prices as opposed to using the LME as a reference, though this has yet to gain any traction in Europe

Neil Hawkes lead analyst at CRU, a London-based commodity research consultancy, has been a regular speaker at ELBC in the past. Hawkes has been responsible for CRU’s lead market analysis for the last 25 years and is the main author of the company’s quarterly Lead Market Outlook and monthly Lead Monitor.



intensity of the key processes now and in future, with various levels of further technology deployment; ma-terial effi ciency analysis explores how less metal could in many cases deliver the same service.

“This story will be illustrated with practical examples across the supply chain,” he says. “The lead industry is promoting the value of lead as a key component of expanding energy storage, and the talk will conclude by examining how, within the scenarios developed by the IPCC, the require-ments for energy storage are expect-ed to develop, how lead might play a role in this requirement, and what challenges this creates for the lead in-dustry and its supply chain.”

Global warming and transportPatrick Moseley, a long-time and highly regarded researcher in his fi eld, will also consider the challenges of global warming in his paper, Global Warming and Lead-Carbon Batteries, which will draw on material from his new book called Towards Sustainable Road Transport, written with Ronald Dell, and David Rand.

The book charts the century-long development of road transport based on the internal combustion engine, surveys the progress in technology that offers the potential to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and, in a foretaste of the future, assesses the prospects for the targets in emissions reduction by 2050 to be met.

Moseley was awarded a PhD for crystal structure analysis in 1968 by the University of Durham. He also worked for 23 years at the Harwell Laboratory of the UK Atomic Energy

Authority, where he brought a back-ground of crystal structure and mate-rials chemistry to the study of lead-acid batteries, thus supplementing the traditional electrochemical emphasis of the subject.

From 1995 he was manager of electrochemistry at the International Lead Zinc Research Organization in North Carolina and manager of the Advanced Lead–Acid Battery Con-sortium. In 2005 he also became president of the consortium. In 2008 he was awarded the Gaston Planté medal by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

He says that as the world takes the issue of climate change increasingly seriously, batteries will have an in-creasingly important role to play.

“Decision-making bodies around the world take the threat of global warming suffi ciently seriously to set targets for reducing the mass of the major greenhouse gas, carbon diox-

The real question is whether the supply side can keep pace with the steady growth seen in terms of demand. Despite the fi ght for scrap, global secondary lead supplies will continue to rise, leaving the industry increasingly reliant on a more fragile global primary supply chain.

“By 2050, the number of cars in the world will have tripled from current levels … if the totality of the vehicles in 2050 is to be accountable for no more than 50% of the 2000 emissions of CO

2 then the average

emission, per car, must be reduced, not by 50%, but by 80%” — Moseley, international researcher

still not guaranteed and that other producers could up their own pro-duction levels.

Another story to watch will be the future of Exide’s operations in the US, which fi led for Chapter 11 bank-ruptcy protection in June 2013. Its plan to emerge has been muddied by the idling of its Vernon second-ary lead smelter in California since March due to environmental issues.

The real question, Hawkes says, is whether the supply side can keep pace with the steady growth seen in terms of demand. Despite the fi ght for scrap, global secondary lead supplies will continue to rise, leaving the industry increasingly reliant on a more fragile global primary supply chain.

Yet demand continues to grow and he sees few factors that could hold this back. Demand for lead globally has been relatively immune to the more sluggish upward path in the broader global economy. Hawkes expects growth to remain robust for some time to come.

However, environmental regulation in China could have an impact. As the country attempts to tackle pollu-tion and congestion, various regula-tions could impact the batteries used in vehicles including electric bikes.

There is also the question over whether stop-start technology will grow at the same rate in other re-gions as it has in Europe. This too should help lead demand, with lead-acid the preferred battery chemistry for these vehicles.

Against this backdrop of uncer-tainty in the supply chain, the price of lead on the LME, however, has been fl at for some time at around $2,100 a tonne. “It occasionally moves up or down a little but basically it is a sideways trend,” he says. “Inves-tors think there is enough supply out there for the moment. There is prob-ably some frustration that it has not moved, but investors are cautious.”

More interesting than the price of lead is the price of zinc — the two are mined together — at the moment. A lot of big zinc mines are closing and long-term this could have a knock on effect on the price of lead, he says. “But not yet.” And a further slip in sil-ver prices could provide yet another twist to the lead tale ahead.



ide, that can be legally released to the atmosphere in future decades,” Mo-seley says.

“A target proposed by the Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC), for example, suggests that, by 2050, CO2 emissions should be halved from the levels that were cur-rent at the turn of the century. The two principal anthropogenic [human generated] sources of CO2 are elec-tricity generation and transport. If the 50% reduction in emissions is to be achieved then major technological developments will have to take place in both of these sectors and a marked increase in the need for electrochemi-cal energy-storage (batteries) is fore-seen.”

Although there are strong moves to increase the use of renewable sourc-es of energy such as wind and solar power in generating electricity, the availability of energy seldom matches the pattern of demand.

This means that some form of stor-age must be used as the proportion of wind and solar energies in the overall energy-mix increases, Moseley says. In some such applications the nec-essary storage may be provided by compressed-air energy torage or by pumped-hydro schemes, but in other cases, such as in smart grids, large re-chargeable batteries are likely to be used.

In the transport sector, novel auto-mobile systems that deploy stop-start and hybrid-electric technologies are becoming familiar but the fuel econo-mies (and therefore reduction of car-bon dioxide emissions) that they offer top-out at around 20%.

To achieve an overall transport sec-tor reduction at this level, all of the cars on the road would need to be of this type — an unrealistic prospect.

And he has a stark warning. “The situation is worse yet because, by 2050, it is anticipated that the num-ber of cars in the world will have tri-

pled from current levels as a result of the increasing standard of living of the two most populous nations on the planet (China and India),” he says.

“In reality, if the totality of the vehi-cles on the roads of the world in 2050 is to be accountable for no more than 50% of the 2000 emissions of CO2 then the average emission, per car, must be reduced, not by 50%, but by 80%.”

He says there are further problems with seeing electric vehicles as the so-lution to reducing CO2 emissions.

“At fi rst sight, battery electric vehi-cles appear to offer the ultimate solu-tion in the pursuit of freedom from fossil fuels and the elimination of en-vironmental pollution. This ideal so-lution would only be valid, however, if all of the electricity used to propel the vehicles were to be derived from sources that do not involve the com-bustion of hydrocarbon fuels.”

There are very few areas of the world where this utopian situation exists.

In Europe, where the primary ener-gy mix includes many power stations fuelled by coal or natural gas, a com-pact class BEV will be responsible for 87g CO2 per km driven as a result of the greenhouse gas emissions at the power stations where the electricity is generated.

Fuel cell electric vehicles might offer an alternative approach to avoiding the emission of CO2, provided that the hydrogen with which they are fuelled is generated electrically rather than from hydrocarbons.

However, the fuel cell option is

likely to be expensive to implement for cars (although there are already some bus fl eets that use the system) as it would involve the construction of hydrogen re-fuelling stations nation-wide and an entirely new distribution system.

“It is thus diffi cult to avoid the con-clusion that, if the greenhouse gas emissions reduction target suggested by the IPCC is to be met by 2050 —and it is not yet clear if this will be enough to avoid dangerous changes in climate patterns — road transport will have to shift to a largely all-electric motive power system and the electricity that is used must be drawn substantially from non-carbon gener-ation technologies; renewable sources or nuclear,” says Moseley.

The future of EVsOther speakers will focus on purely on the performance of certain sec-tors of the batteries markets and the potential growth prospects around these.

Christophe Pillot, partner and di-rector of Avicenne Energy, France, a market research and consulting fi rm which publishes an annual report called The worldwide rechargeable battery market, will cover the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (P-HEV) and electric vehicle (EV) markets in his presenta-tion, specifi cally examining their de-velopment and impact on the battery business.

Pillot joined Avicenne Energy some 18 years ago and spent three years in Japan conducting analysis on the

“But against the context of the economic downturn, there are many questions that remain unanswered in terms of how this sector will continue to develop. With the fi nancial and economic crisis, what will be car suppliers’ next strategy? Will stop/start applications thanks to advanced lead acid batteries succeed?” —

Pillot, Avicenne Energy

“At fi rst sight, battery electric vehicles appear to offer the ultimate solution in the pursuit of freedom from fossil fuels and the elimination of environmental pollution. This ideal solution would only be valid, however, if all of the electricity used to propel the vehicles were to be derived from sources that do not involve the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels.”



electronic, mobile and Japanese battery market. He developed the battery market analysis for Avicenne Energy and is the founder of a series of annual battery congresses in France, which has been running since 1999.

He will start by describing the HEV, PHEV and EV battery market in 2013 before making forecasts for micro hybrid and xEV and the impact on the battery business.

“I will gave what is renowned as the most detailed and accurate forecast on the battery industry for lead acid, NiCd, NiMH and Li-ion and for all kind of ap-plications from smart cards, electronic devices, to au-tomotive or energy storage systems,” Pillot says.

In the fi ve years, from 2008 to 2013, the hybrid ve-hicle market increased from 300,000 to more than 1.8 million vehicles sold and stop/start car sales achieved 13 million in 2013.

“But against the context of the economic downturn, there are many questions that remain unanswered in terms of how this sector will continue to develop,” he says. “With the fi nancial and economic crisis, what will be car suppliers’ next strategy? Will stop/start ap-plications thanks to advanced lead acid batteries suc-ceed?”

Some analysts forecast that the market for stop-start vehicles will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 30% between 2012 and 2020, reaching a total market of 37 million vehicles sold annually by the end of the period.

“But a question mark remains over the predominant technology they use,” he says. “Will it be lead acid, supercapacitors, ultrabatteries, advanced fl ooded bat-teries or AGM? What will be the market for micro-hybrid or HEV batteries be in 2015 & 2025? Will the Li-ion battery with a lower price cathode succeed? What is the price level to compete with NiMH tech-nology or lead acid technology?”

Pillot says his presentation will analyse the automo-tive battery market 2013 and he will share forecasts up to 2025 for micro hybrids, HEVs, P-HEVs and full EVs as well as industrial batteries (stationary and mo-tive).

Regulatory challengesThe next speaker in this part of the conference will cover regulatory matters. Johann-Friedrich Demp-wolff, vice president of industry and governmental re-lations for Johnson Controls Power Solutions EMEA, will present a paper entitled Update on Market and

“Will it be lead acid, supercapacitors, ultrabatteries, advanced fl ooded batteries or AGM? What will be the market for micro-hybrid or HEV batteries be in 2015 & 2025? Will the Li-ion battery with a lower price cathode succeed? What is the price level to compete with NiMH technology or lead acid technology?”

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Regulatory Trends Impacting the Eu-ropean Battery Industry.

Dempwolff, who is also president of EUROBAT, started his career at Varta Autobatterie. He has been a management board member since 2001. He was also responsible for OEM sales for Europe at board level up until 2012. When the company was taken over by Johnson Controls in 2002 and there were other acquisi-tions, Dempwolff was involved in the expansion of the original equipment manufacturer’s business.

Dempwolff’s presentation will showcase how the battery indus-try has made considerable efforts to comply with EU and global health, safety and environment rules, while at the same time striving to meet new market expectations in terms of in-novation, effi ciency and output. But he says more challenges remain and his presentation will allow delegates to better understand how current and future developments of the EU regu-latory framework will impact their businesses.

“Europe has the advantage of a highly sophisticated car manufactur-ing industry and many advanced elec-trical engineering and power compa-nies. The European battery industry is faced with tough legislative chal-lenges which makes the economic en-vironment increasingly burdensome for manufacturers.

“EUROBAT is discussing this situ-ation with stakeholders in Brussels. While doing so, the association high-lights the position of the Battery in-dustry as a key pillar of EU’s sustain-able economic development,” he says.

Linda Gaines, a systems analyst at the Center for Transportation Re-search at the US’ Argonne National Laboratory, will also touch on regula-tory issues specifi cally in relation to lithium-ion batteries in a speech en-titled ‘Enabling Future Recycling of Li-Ion Batteries’.

Gaines, who has a doctorate in physics from Columbia University has written a series of handbooks about energy and material fl ows in petroleum refi ning, organic chemicals, and copper industries. These have provided background for studies of technical and institutional issues in-volved in recycling tyres, packaging, and other energy-intensive materials.

Gaines has also examined the costs and impacts on energy use and the environment of production and re-cycling of advanced-design automo-biles, trucks, and trains, and batteries

and studied the potential growth of electricity demand by industry and performed technical and economic analysis of alternative fuels, including hydrogen and biofuels.

Her most recent work has involved studying ways to reduce petroleum use and other impacts from transport by recycling of batteries and also by reducing vehicle idling.

She will speak about lithium-ion batteries, starting with a brief de-scription of their composition, pro-duction and end-of-life use. She will compare these ones to lead acid bat-teries as relates to recycling, and will discuss recent cross-contamination issues and what might be done to al-leviate future problems.

She also believes that the problems caused by Li-ion batteries at second-ary lead smelters will be a big talking point at the event generally. She hopes

to use sessions at ELBC to better un-derstand the lead industry so she I can “help keep Li-ion batteries out of lead-acid recycling, and vice versa”!

Gaines from the Argonne National Laboratory has also examined the costs and impacts on energy use and the environment of production and recycling of advanced-design automobiles, trucks, and trains, and batteries and studied the potential growth of electricity demand by industry

“Europe has the advantage of a highly sophisticated car manufacturing industry and many advanced electrical engineering and power companies. The European battery industry is faced with tough legislative challenges which makes the economic environment increasingly burdensome for manufacturers” — Dempwolff, Johnson Controls and

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ENERGY STORAGE AND THE GRID

The energy storage market at the grid level is set for rapid growth with many companies battling to ensure their solutions secure a slice of what is rapidly becoming a lucrative market.

But as yet, it’s only a small slice of the big picture. Driven largely by elec-tronics and plug-in vehicles, the ener-gy storage market as a whole globally is forecast to grow at a compound an-nual growth rate of 8% to $50 billion in 2020, with dramatic shifts coming from the transportation industry, ac-cording to Lux Research.

Transportation applications will outpace electronics growth — attain-ing an 11% CAGR to become a $21 billion market by the end of the dec-ade. Its faster growth will close the gap with electronics, which still will remain the single largest market val-ued at $27 billion.

But the market for stationary appli-cations is relatively small in compari-son but growing fast. It is forecast to be worth $2.8 billion, as it awaits cost breakthroughs.

Lux says that driven by solar inte-gration, residential represents the big-gest opportunity in stationary energy storage applications — leaping from less than $100 million to $1.2 billion in 2020. A robust downstream indus-try, innovative fi nancing and strong policies in countries such as Germany and the US are also favourable fac-tors. UPS and backup applications provide the next largest opportunity, with $700 million in 2020 revenues, while renewables shifting at the util-ity level with $300 million, rounds out the top three.

This session at ELBC will specifi -cally focus on the role energy storage will play in the future of the genera-tion of electricity with all the speakers covering this theme.

John Wood, the chief executive of

Ecoult, the developer of the UltraB-attery storage solutions, will be up fi rst giving a paper entitled The Im-plementation of Multiple Capabilities for Profi table Grid Energy Storage Systems, he will discuss the value that energy storage brings to grid stability, renewable integration, and variability management.

“I will also examine how to deliver this value via approaches that deliver profi t to the full supply chain and unlock the ‘bankability’ accelerator,” Wood says.

Wood, who joined the energy stor-age industry in 2008 having previous-

ly launched technologies in security, identity, payment technology, and tel-ecommunications, says he will be very specifi c in his presentation in the way he describes the progression that has been made in “identifying the value models and attacking the cost mod-els” in the context of projects Ecoult is implementing at the moment.

“We have three specifi c project ini-tiatives that form the underlying sup-port for a distributed storage rollout that we are planning with a major partner,” he says. “The timing around a couple of deals we are doing with customers of that partner will deter-mine how specifi c I will be able to be in identifying the partner.”

Need for scaleWood notes that in addition to cost/performance and bankability momen-tum, these markets will also require maturity and scale which, he argues, is one of the strengths of the lead acid industry.

Peter Stevenson, senior technical coordinator at Yuasa Battery Europe, will present a paper giving a descrip-tion of a grid-connected lead acid energy storage system which was commissioned in Shetland earlier this year. Stevenson says the battery used is probably the largest VRLA bat-tery system operating in Europe with 3MWh capacity and 1MW power output.

He will present on behalf of several authors from companies involved in the project. These comprise Takashi Yasaki from GS-Yuasa Corporation, which manufactured the battery; Dennis Doerffel from REAPSystems, the Battery Management System inte-grator; Mick Barlow from S&C Elec-tric Europe, the Power Conversion System maker and lead contractor; and Nathan Coote from Scottish and

As one of the fastest growing areas of the global batteries industry, this session of the 14th European Lead Battery Conference covering energy storage will see seven presentations focus on the latest developments and technologies in this sector.

Mission critical for the future

In addition to cost/performance and bankability momentum, these markets will also require maturity and scale which are the strengths of the lead acid industry —

John Wood, Ecoult


ENERGY STORAGE AND THE GRID

Southern Energy, the system operator.The battery is operated by Scot-

tish and Southern Electric at Ler-wick power station. The project was funded through the UK Low Carbon Network Fund to provide data on the benefi ts of load levelling and frequen-cy stabilization in a small grid with high proportions of wind generation being attached in the near future.

GS Yuasa has developed a range of VRLA batteries specifi cally for load levelling applications, which have unique charge control features. “These have enabled the current pro-ject to be completed in a way which would not be possible with conven-tional types that are used in large scale PV applications for example,” says Stevenson.

The opportunity for VRLA to be used occurred because of safety issues with a large high temperature sodium battery, which had been previously installed at the site. Conventional VRLA types were not compatible with the required control strategies, he says. A day trip to the site has been offered to ELBC delegates and a party of eight will make a tour of the plant on September 9.

Jack Shindle, vice president of engi-neering at Axion Power International, and Michael Romeo, research and de-velopment manager at Axion Power International, will present on the fi rm’s PowerCube technology, an ad-vanced battery energy storage system the company has developed.

Romeo has been with Axion Power for fi ve years and, in conjunction with his research at Axion Power, he has also been involved in research funded by the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) and the US De-partment of Energy.

Shindle is responsible for oversight and project management of all en-gineering functions at the fi rm. He brings 18 years of experience working on materials, process and product de-velopment for semiconductor compo-nents, fuel cells, hydrogen generation and lead acid batteries.

Behind-the-meter profi tsThe Axion Power PbC batteries can also be for behind-the-meter frequen-cy regulation during times of stable grid power. This is a relatively new concept, Romeo says, but it is gaining widespread traction from both elec-trical consumers and rate transmis-sion operators (RTOs).

Frequency regulation helps correct short-term changes in electrical use

that affect the stability of the power system by matching power generation with load, while adjusting generation output to maintain the desired fre-quency.

“Although New Jersey had sig-nifi cant solar power infrastructure, this resource was left stranded after superstorm Sandy ravaged the US northeast seaboard. This was due to UL1741 requirements, which calls for grid tied solar inverters to stop pro-ducing power during grid failure,” says Shindle.

“Axion Power has developed a sys-tem that functions as a micro-grid that, in the event of an extended power outage, will ‘island’ the solar and battery system. The battery bi-di-rectional inverter can then be used to create a micro-grid thereby allowing the solar inverters to continue opera-tion.”

Arguably the most progressive RTO

is the PJM network, which is a grid operator for 13 US states, says Ro-meo. Axion’s PowerCube Battery En-ergy Storage System (BESS) has been a constant participant in the PJM Regulation Market for the past two years.

Axion is compensated by PJM for following their frequency regulation signal when called upon. In 2012, ‘FERC’ passed additional rules that allow for increased pay rates for those assets that respond quickly to the PJM signal. PbC batteries respond in 55 milliseconds.

These new compensation rates, paid by PJM, currently average $30 per MWh. The combination of a PbC BESS and a renewable energy source provides to the end user both energy security and a source of revenue that quickly offsets the initial investment required, while offering a source of signifi cant future income.

After superstorm Sandy ravaged the US northeast seaboard: New Jersey could not use its solar power infrastructure, due to UL1741 requirements, that calls for grid tied solar inverters to stop producing power during grid failure.


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Our highly interactive and innovative approach to

automated machine, tool and die, and mold design follows

precise safety standards and utilizes the best materials to

produce top-of-the-line machines

and equipment that are built to last in 24/7 environments.

Contact details:

Jim Gilmour

+1 727.522.0515

[email protected]

www.farmermold.com

Eco-Bat Technologies

Stand 8

ECOBAT Technologies is the world’s largest producer of

refi ned lead with facilities located throughout the globe, in

many European countries, South Africa and the United States.

Lately, we have increased our commercial presence in Asia

with a sales offi ce in Bangkok and agents in Japan, Korea,

Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the

Philippines.

Not only are our facilities world class, ISO 9001 being

just one of the many accreditations that the plants operate

under, but we also undertake research and development into

the improvement of our lead products to give the end user a

superior product.

Work continues on improving both soft and alloy lead

performances, with SuperSoft® being the latest example of

our development work. In head-to-head testing, SuperSoft®

Ultra advanced recycled lead performed at 100% equivalency

to primary lead of 99.99% purity.

As ‘Leaders in Lead’ we are committed to the highest

international standards and our brands are all LME

registered.

Whilst our principal activity is the production of lead, the

company also produces a number of other products, such as

silver, sulphuric acid, polypropylene and sodium sulphate.

We strive continuously to improve the environmental

performance of our operations by optimizing the use of

natural resources and energy. The health and safety of our

3,500 skilled employees and all who come into contact with

our operations is one of our core values.

Contact details:

Tel: +44 1 629 736 115

Web: www.ecobatgroup.com

Email: [email protected]

SOVEMA S.p.A

Stands 93/94

MORE THAN 40 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN BATTERY

AUTOMATION WORLDWIDE

Founded in 1969 SOVEMA is the worldwide leading supplier of

machinery for lead-acid battery production.

Recognizing years ago that automation, lead saving and

environmental control are critical to plant effi ciency, SOVEMA’s

specialists developed state-of-the-art manufacturing solutions

for lead-acid battery production.

In its own industrial premises near Verona (Italy), recently

enlarged, SOVEMA is the only equipment manufacturer

capable of designing and producing turn-key battery plants.

It is able to supply a complete range of automated

systems for the entire production cycle, using an integrated

technological approach, starting from the study of factory and

departmental lay-out, through to product know-how and plant

commissioning by specialized staff.

In 2008 SOVEMA acquired BITRODE CORPORATION,

one of the most respected global suppliers of electric power

conversions systems for EV/HEV battery testing, as well as

production and test systems used in the battery manufacturing

process.

More recently SOVEMA started a new division, “SoLith”, to

develop Lithium-ion battery manufacturing technologies. The

SoLith team has more than 15 years of experience in process

automation design, winding and stacking systems, lamination,

electrode punching, tab welding and pouch forming.

Sovema is implementing its equipment range more and

more, as to improve its market leadership and serve any kind

of energy storage manufacturers.


14 ELBC FLOORPLAN

BITRODE CORPORATION

Stand 94

BITRODE CORPORATION, a Sovema Company, is a leading

manufacturer of battery charging and testing equipment with

over 50 years of industry experience. By partnering with

customers to integrate their unique requirements into each

product, Bitrode is consistently able to meet the changing

needs of a sophisticated market.

They offer an extensive product line of formation and

laboratory test equipment, user-friendly software and

manufacturing automation tools appropriate to all battery

applications and chemistries.

Their manufacturing and engineering facility is based

in St. Louis, Missouri-USA with sales and support offi ces

in North America, Europe and Asia. In addition, Bitrode

cultivates relationships with industry sales and supply

networks around the globe, providing all customers with

timely and knowledgeable service.

Their focus on quality and commitment to providing

superior technical support drives them to be the best

full-service manufacturer of formation charging and test

equipment for both large and small cell markets.

Contact details:

John Grimm, Director of Sales & Marketing

+1.636.343.6112

[email protected]

www.bitrode.com

MAC Engineering

Stands 40/42

MAC Engineering supplies the lead acid battery industry with

high quality downstream battery making equipment since

1965.

We offer complete systems for feeding, pasting, fl ash drying

and stacking any continuous or gravity cast plate making

technology.

From motorcycle and automotive batteries, to industrial

and traction, we have equipment to handle any size of battery

production.

New equipment solutions are now available for punched

grids. MAC also offers fi nishing line equipment for automated

Cast on Strap, acid fi lling, leak testing, heat sealing and more.

Contact us today for more information on what we can do

for you.

Contact details:

Doug Bornas

Tel: +1 269-925-3295

E-mail: [email protected]

www.mac-eng.com

OMI-NBE COMPANY PROFILE

Stand 64

OMI-NBE provides the best solutions for battery formation

and charging:

• ACID RECIRCULATION FORMATION

• ADVANCED WATER BATH FORMATION

• FILLING PROCESS FOR FLOODED & AGM BATTERIES

• FINISHING & DISPATCHING EQUIPMENT

• ACID PREPARATION, STORAGE AND RECOVERY

• TUBULAR PLATES FILLING AND SLURRY PREPARATION

• AUXILIARY EQUIPMENT

We work in the fi eld of engineering and technologies

for the production and charge of different type of batteries

(AUTOMOTIVE, INDUSTRIAL, FLOODED or AGM & VRLA),

proposing partial or complete solutions which satisfy the

customer’s requests drawing to a consolidated and innovative

know-how.

From the smallest equipment to a complete project for a

new plant for the battery charging, we are able to study and

supply to you with the best solution for your requirements

thanks to our technical knowledge and experience, following

your indications if you have any preference about the

process, or giving you different choices based on our wide

offer.

We can take care of your batteries coming from the

assembly, starting from the acid and water preparation,

forming them with our water cooling systems or with the acid

recirculation formation system, test and prepare your high

quality batteries for the shipment to your fi nal client and user.

Contact details:


Web: www.omi-nbe.com

Tel. & Fax: +39 0363 901 981


14 ELBC FLOORPLAN

Sorfi n Yoshimura Ltd

Stand 40/42

Sorfi n Yoshimura Ltd is a global service provider to the energy

storage industry. Sorfi n Yoshimura Group has more than 30

years industry experience exclusively in the lead acid battery

industry. We supply machinery, materials, consumables and

other technical services to hundreds of battery makers around

the world. Our sales team is dedicated to understanding the

needs of each individual battery maker and ensuring that we are

supplying machinery and materials aligned precisely with each

facility specifi c needs.

When you select Sorfi n Yoshimura, you will quickly identify

the unique combination of commercial savvy and engineering

know-how that has enabled us to become the company that

we are today. Our current locations are the USA, Japan, China,

France, Brasil, India and Thailand. Please contact any of our

locations and get a glimpse of the Next Generation of Power:

Sorfi n Yoshimura!

Contact details:

Web: www.sorfi nyoshimura.com

Email: sorfi n@sorfi n.com, tokyo@sorfi n-yoshimura.jp,

qingdao@sorfi n-yoshimura.cn, paris@sorfi n-yoshimura.fr,

pune@sorfi n-yoshimura.in, saopaulo@sorfi n-yoshimura.br,

bangkok@sorfi n-yoshimura.th

• Europe: 4eme ETG, 31 Rue Carnot, 78000 Versailles, France

Phone: +33 1 70 29 49 07 Fax: +33 1 73 79 18 16

Email: paris@sorfi n-yoshimura.fr

• Brazil: Rua General Jardim 770-10° andar-Cj. 10D

CEP: 01223-010- Brazil Higienópolis – São Paulo,

Phone: +11 3280-5959 ou +11 3151-2223

Email: saopaulo@sorfi n-yoshimura.br

• Thailand: 16th Floor, Times Square Bldg. 246

Sukhumvit Rd. Khlong Toei, Bangkok, Thailand 10110

Phone: +662-626-5965/+662-626-5964

• India: Msr Olive, Survey No. 47, Flat No. 804, B. Bldg.

Pattanagar Jambhulwadi Rd, Ambegaon Budruk, Pune 411 046

Phone: +91 7387644425, Email: sales@sorfi n-yoshimura.in

CMWTEC technologie GmbH

Stand 92

CMWTEC technologie GmbH has been operating for over 30

years on the national German and worldwide markets and

has a reputation for high quality standards, reliability and

experience in mechanical engineering. The effi cient team

works hand-in-hand with our customers, from the initial

contact through the various phases, from design, delivery,

start-up up to spare parts supply.

The company headquarters is close to Frankfurt Int’l

Airport, in Germany with good local connections by road and

rail, also a shuttle service is always available to customers.

CMWTEC machines are based on standard assemblies

and can be adapted to various applications according to

customer specifi cation and process requirements, allowing

customers to select a wide-range of products from standard

automatic to high-tech fully automatic machines to meet

OEM requirements.

Our AGM Premium Finishing Line Equipment, ECO

(Economic) Line Equipment, Single machines and complete

lines have been worldwide installed successfully in the last

decades. The quality stamp “Made in Germany” on all our

machines stands for stability and sound workmanship.

Contact details:

Michael Wipperfürth, Sales Manager

Phone: +49 6431 9924 18, Fax: +49 6431 7444 3

Mobile: +49 175 221 3034

Email: [email protected], Web: www.cmwtec.de

Källström Engineering AB

Stand 88

Källström Engineering AB is a well known supplier to the

battery industry.

We specialise in providing custom-designed equipment: for

fi lling all kinds of lead acid batteries, or capacitors; for gel and

acid mixing; and, for acid handling.

Recent additions to our product range include:

• Compact continuous acid mixing unit

• Filling equipment for AGM motorcycle batteries

• Filling equipment for bi-polar batteries

• Filling equipment for capacitors (acid or alkali)

• Four headed fi lling machine for VRLA batteries

• Gel mixing and gel fi lling

• Database for process monitoring

Our range of products also includes: acid proof conveyors,

weighing equipment, storage tanks and rotary unions.

Our after-sales support includes commissioning,

maintenance, spares, repairs and equipment upgrades.

Källström has its headquarters in Sweden but we serve the

whole world.

Contact details:

Bo Johansson

Phone: +46 40 671 1206

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: www.kallstrom.com

Oak Press Solutions Inc

Stands 40/42

Oak Press Solutions Inc. has been designing and building high

speed punching systems for over 50 years at our headquarters

in Sturgis, Michigan, USA.

In addition to our facilities in Sturgis, we also have a

technical support facility in China, Europe and India. Our

presentation will focus on the various punching systems

available from OAK and the newest innovations developed for

these systems. The Oak punching systems can be confi gured

for production volumes from 500,000 to 5,000,000,000+

batteries per year. Oak systems can produce lug-in strip or

lug-out panels for SLI applications, multi-panel strips for E-Bike

or motorcycle applications.

Come learn about the advanced battery grid punching

technology from the company with the most real world

experience in the battery industry.

Contact details:

OAK Press Solutions Inc. 504 Wade St, Sturgis, Michigan 49091

Ph: +1 269-651-8513

Fax: +1 269-659-4625

[email protected]

www.oakpresses.com


14 ELBC FLOORPLAN

WIRTZ Manufacturing

Stand 72

The WIRTZ group of Companies provides global solutions

to the world-wide battery manufacturing industry. With

state-of-the-art equipment designed and developed by; WIRTZ

(gravity-cast, continuously-cast and rolled, punched grid and

plate production); OXMASTER (ball-mill and barton oxide

production systems, and paste mixing equipment); LEKO (semi-

automatic and high speed fully-automatic battery assembly

lines); CONBRO (battery fi lling and formation plants); and

BATTERYRECYCLING (turnkey battery breaking lead and plastic

recycling systems, including paste desulphurisation).

At the 14ELBC, WIRTZ will demonstrate their commitment

to automatically control, and continuously improve critical

process variables, in order to ensure that their resulting

battery products are of the highest QUALITY, DURABILITY and

PERFORMANCE.

Contact details:

WIRTZ Manufacturing Company Inc..

1105 Twenty-Fourth Street

Port Huron

Michigan 48061-5006

USA

Tel: +1 810 987 7600

Email; [email protected]

ITS

Stand 99

The Battery Manufacturing Division of International Thermal

Systems engineers energy effi cient equipment for the Lead

Acid Battery Industry. With over thirty-fi ve years of experience

and expertise serving, International Thermal Systems offers

innovative design in equipment to maximize production

effi ciencies and minimize energy consumption.

Approaching each project as a partnership, the goal of our

Engineering Staff is to share the customer’s vision to produce

the best solution for the application.

Providing a distinct competitive advantage, International

Thermal Systems offers a number of patent protected

processing solutions.

Our Technical Service Department provides international

support for ALL makes/models of thermal processing

equipment to keep the heat processing equipment running

effi ciently.

Contact details:

Susan Hoffmann

Tel: +1 414.902.5309

[email protected]

www.internationalthermalsystems.com

KUSTAN

Stand 91

Since 1977, KUSTAN has stood for expertise in plastics, and

we are active worldwide in the fi eld of plant engineering. With

qualifi ed interdisciplinary teams at our sites in Gelsenkirchen

and Rudolstadt, we offer you the entire spectrum of activities

from planning to manufacturing and assembly.

Our company’s core competencies involve developing

and building, manufacturing and assembling thermoplastic

systems, containers, pipelines, devices, plant components

and special constructions in the areas of water, chemistry,

air and technology, as well as maintenance and service.

We are certifi ed and recognized as a specialized company

as per the Wasserhaushaltsgesetz (German Water Act,

WHG). As a manufacturer of thermoplastic fl at-bottom tanks

and collection vessels with a volume of up to 50 m³, we

hold general type approval from the Deutsche Institut für

Bautechnik, Berlin. We are certifi ed as per ISO 9001:2008.

Our customers are plant operators in various industries,

for instance the battery industry, chemical surface treatment,

acid dilution plants, tank farms and plants for manufacturing

chemicals, fl ue-gas cleaning systems, fl ue-gas scrubbers

and aerosol separators.

KUSTAN offers high quality standards and innovative

solutions for every project phase.

Contact details:

Phone: +49 209 940770

Web: www.kustan.de

Mail: [email protected]


14 ELBC FLOORPLAN

ACCUMALUX GROUP

Stand 23

The Accumalux Group performs plastic injection moulding

of automotive (SLI/AGM) and industrial (stand-by and motive

power) battery containers, lids and accessories.

Its area of expertise covers the development and

production of battery sets using a variety of plastic materials

and thanks to largely automated production, combined

with skilled human and logistic resources, Accumalux is in

position to guarantee quality, reliability and fl exibility. Taking

advantage of its highly automated production facilities,

Accumalux is able to make world class products with great

levels of service.

With its production facilities in Luxembourg, Czech

Republic, Bulgaria and Australia, the Accumalux Group

supplies its products to the major battery manufacturers

throughout the world.

Contact details:

Web: www.accumalux.com


Phone: +352 367 062

Hammond Group

Stand 41

Hammond Expanders is the world’s leading developer and

producer of pre-blended expanders for SLI/engine starting,

valve regulated, motive power, standby power, hybrid/electric

vehicle and solar/wind power applications.

With locations in the USA, UK and Malaysia, Hammond

Expanders has the ability to supply your battery company no

matter where you may be located.

Our expanders are custom packaged to provide you with

the easiest introduction to your paste mix per a one bag per

batch ratio. They are the most technically innovative and

reliable available on the market; with decades of expander

formulation and experience under our belt, rest assured that

you are getting the highest quality product available.Also we

are introducing the new K2 range for today’s Partial State of

Charge Applications.

Contact details

Steve Barnes


Phone+44 191 482 7592

AMETEK Fluoropolymer Products

Stand 38

AMETEK Fluoropolymer Products manufactures high purity

and corrosion-resistant Fluoropolymer Heat Exchangers

and Fluoropolymer Tubing and Piping for lead-acid battery,

chemical processing, metalworking, semiconductor,

aerospace, and other industries. Our heat exchangers feature

braided tubing and thermally fused ends resulting in superior

heat transfer within a smaller footprint. AMETEK’s proprietary

honeycomb tube sheet ensures endurance without leaks

or thermo-mechanical failures common with other heat

exchangers. The fl uoropolymer resins used are chemically

inert to corrosion, ensuring longevity unachievable with

exotic metal heat exchangers. AMETEK tubing and piping

are made from high- and ultra-high purity fl uoropolymer

resins to meet specifi c applications and JIT delivery

requirements. AMETEK tubing meets operating temperatures

and pressures up to 70 psi. Newly introduced products

made from DuPont ECA3000 resins are expected to increase

pressure/temperature tolerance as much as 30%. AMETEK

Fluoropolymer Products is a business unit of AMETEK, Inc.,

a leading global manufacturer of electronic instruments and

electromechanical devices with annual sales of $3.6 billion.

bfs - batterie füllungs systeme gmbh

Stand 10

batterie füllungs systemeing. klaus oschmann

www.bfsgmbh.de

Since 1980 the company bfs has been exclusively producing

single point watering systems for industrial batteries. The basic

element of the system is the bfs plug whose most important

operational and fl exibility characteristics are protected by key

patents.

The reliable, well tested mechanism inside the plug allows

the battery to be fi lled with water at pressures ranging from

0,2 to 3,8 bars (3-53psi).

Only bfs offers such a unique performance and a variety of

specialty plugs to meet specifi c needs of the battery industry.

More than 30 years of research and development have

shaped the technology of this system.

The production of over 88 million plugs has made the

company the global market leader in this fi eld.

Contact details:

www.bfsgmbh.de

[email protected]

tel. ++49 8131 3640

Go to www.batteriesinternational.comclick on subscriptions for your free trial

Are your customers in the dark about the excellent range of products and services your company provides?

NEED BUSINESS ACCESS?


14 ELBC FLOORPLAN

Chloride Technical and Trading

Chloride Technical and Trading offers a comprehensive range

of services to the lead-acid battery industry. The company

works with battery manufacturers worldwide to improve

profi tability and performance by supplying the latest machinery

and manufacturing technology. In addition to building and

equipping new factories, it also helps manufacturers to

modernise and expand production.

With well over 40 years’ experience in the industry,

Chloride Technical and Trading has developed close links

with the world’s leading specialist machinery manufacturers.

The company brings together the most appropriate plant

and machinery for a particular project and ensures the

total integration of new and existing equipment to optimise

performance and productivity.

Chloride Technical and Trading also supplies plant and

equipment for the safe and effi cient recycling of scrap batteries

and for the smelting of recovered lead.

From design, supply and installation to commissioning,

training and technical support Chloride Technical and Trading

offers a complete yet totally fl exible solution.

Batteries International

Stand 61

Batteries International has been serving the energy storage

and battery industry for over 20 years and has come to be

regarded as the defi nitive source of unbiased news reporting,

taking an authoritative stance on all aspects of the business.

Batteries International’s editorial team has a reputation for

fairness, integrity and impartiality — it’s in the business of

trying to serve the $30 billion energy storage industry rather

than simply work it for its own good.

The batteries business is in a state of fl ux. All the

previous certainties are being challenged. Geographically,

manufacturing has moved away from its traditional base in

North America and Europe. The work horse of the industry

— the lead acid battery — is increasingly being threatened

by rapidly developing chemistries funded by governments

trying to fi nd out where they can domestic industries a new

competitive edge.

In this environment there are business opportunities —

as well as dangers — galore. Keeping abreast of this

rapidly changing world is a must, which makes Batteries

International’s fair-minded reporting compulsory reading for

the energy storage executive.

Batteries International is provided by independent publisher

Mustard Seed Publishing.

Contact details:

10 Temple Bar Business Park, Strettington, West Sussex,

PO18 0TU

United Kingdom

Phone: +44 (0) 7792 852 337

Web: www.batteriesinternational.com


batterie füllungs systemeing. klaus oschmann

www.bfsgmbh.de

YOUR INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

www.batteriesinternational.com

Issue 85 Fall 2012

Ba eriesInternational


try togethernational.com

THE LAST W

ORD: TALES

FROM THE DARK SIDE

$50/€35

John Petersen: theman behind the blog

The secrets behind great lead paste mixing

Joining the dots: Jerry Cole, LA smogs, ALABC

Full 13th ELBC Paris conference review

What the A123 Systemssell-off really means

Battery sales in the heavens: aviation too

America's great lithium adventureHas theprice tag been worth it?

L

Full conference listing of exhibitors, booths

Techno-wizardry, new battery alchemies await

Bringing the industry togetherwww.batteriesinter


SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION DISCOUNT: S

EE INSIDE!

Inside track view on main themes of the event

Life outside the meetings: Singapore's other side

September 10 to 13, 2013 15th ABC, Singapore

Ready for the chargeLead acid poised for next Asian challenge

ABC

CONFERENCE

SHOWGUIDE

Issue 86 Winter 2012/2013


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THE LAST W

ORD: TALES

FROM THE DARK SIDE

$50/€35

Nickel bucks the trendNew waysof using an old chemistry

Petersen: Green electrons and the renewable pipedream

Losers all? Failures in Li-ion engineering, not the chemistry

Conference blow-outs: The great and the good meet in Nice, Novi

Ovshinsky recalled: father of NiMH and much more

Conference in print: new frontiers of testing open up

Isidor Buchmann: the man behind

the success story

John Petersen: theman behind the blog

The inexorable riseand rise of the hybrids

Local heroes: our guide to ELBC highlights



SPECIAL ELBC 30

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PAGE 19!

J h P t th Detchko Pavlov: carbon additives power on

Portable genius: the hot of the hottest exhibitors

Follow our session by session analysis

Lead acid:the longfight back

September 25-28, 2012 13 ELBC, Paris

ELBC CONFERENCE

SHOWGUIDE


14 ELBC FLOORPLAN

KEY — BY STAND NUMBER

KEY — BY COMPANY NAME

1 Digatron Power Electronics

2 Battery Technology Source Co., Ltd

3, 4, 5 TBS Engineering

6 LHAM Accurate Mold Company Ltd

7 LAP GmbH Laser Applikationen

8 Eco-Bat Technologies

9 AlfaKutu Ve Plastik San. Tic Ltd.

10 bfs - batterie füllungs systeme gmbh

11, 12 Abertax Technologies

13 Wood Mackenzie

14

15 MTH Metalltechnik Halsbrucke GmbH & Co KG

16 ATI SpA

17 Pyrotek

18a Intercontinental Media

18b Shingania

19 Daramic

20 CAM SRL

21 Shenyang JUGU Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd

22 Amer-sil

23 Accumalux Group

24 Associated Battery Products Pvt Ltd

25 Biasin Srl

26/27 Accuma S.p.A.

28 Borregaard LignoTech

29/30 La Pneumatica Srl / Ferrazza / Degani Aldo

31 Jiangsu Jinfan Power Technology Co., Ltd

32 Arexim Engineering (BATTBOX)

33 Ateliers Roche

34 Continuus Properzi

35 ILA/ALABC

36/37 Jiangsu CEMT Energy Equipment Co., Ltd

38 Ametek Fluoropolymer Products

39 Zesar

41 Hammond Group Inc

43 Hollingsworth & Vose

44 Glatfelter Composite Fibers Business Unit

45 HOFMANN POWER SOLUTIONS

46 Alpha Beta Fiberglass Product Co., Ltd

47 M.A. Industries Porous Plastics Division

48 Batek Makina Sanayi ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti.

49 Entek International

50 Dross Engineering

51 Jiangsu Sanhuan Industry and Commerce Co., Ltd

52 KraftPowercon India Pvt. Ltd

53 Pütz Prozessautomatisierung GmbH

54 Mecondor

55 Water Gremlin

56 Owens Corning

57 Bernard Dumas SAS

60 Wuhan Hilans Automation Machine Co Ltd

61 Batteries International

62 Offi cina Meccanica Romanese srl

63 Farmer Mold & Machine Works Inc

64 OMI-NBE

65 BM-Rosendahl

66 Hagemann-Systems

67 Frötek Kunststofftechnik GmbH

68 P.C. di POMPEO CATELLI

69 Inbatec GmbH

70 Eirich

71 HADI-Group – HADI Maschinenbau GmbH – HADI Offermann

72 Wirtz Manufacturing Co.

73 Goonvean Fibres Ltd

74 MSS

77 Bertola

78 BEST

79 ENGITEC TECHNOLOGIES – ITALY

82 Raman FibreScience Private Limited

83 Sinoma Membrane Material Company

84 Zibo Xinxu Mechanical & Electrical Co., Ltd

85 Quanzhou Yucry Traffi c Appliance Co., Ltd

86 Leader Tech United

87 Chem Resist

88 Källström Engineering AB

89 Shandong Jinkeli Power Sources Technology Co., Ltd

90 UK PowerTech Ltd

91 Kustan

92 CMWTEC Technologie GmbH

93 Sovema Group

94 Bitrode

95 Cosmec

96 Co-effi cient Precision Engineering Inc

97 CBE Srl & Ecowair

98 Imerys Graphite & Carbon

99 ITS –International Thermal Systems Battery Manufacturing Equipment Division

100 Accurate Products

101/102 EBC Korea

103 Microporous

40/42 Mac Engineering

40/42 Oak Press

40/42 Sorfi n Yoshimura Ltd/Mac Engineering/Oak Press Solutions Inc

58/59 Akumsan

75/76 Penox Engineering

80/81 ICS Srl (SE.R.I. Group)

Abertax Technologies 11, 12

Accuma S.p.A. 26/27

Accumalux Group 23

Accurate Products 100

Akumsan 58/59

AlfaKutu Ve Plastik San. Tic Ltd 9

Alpha Beta Fiberglass Product Co., Ltd 46

Amer-sil 22

Ametek Fluoropolymer Products 38

Arexim Engineering (BATTBOX) 32

Associated Battery Products Pvt Ltd 24

Ateliers Roche 33

ATI SpA 16

Batek Makina Sanayi ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti. 48

Battery Technology Source Co., Ltd 2

Bernard Dumas SAS 57

Bertola 77

BEST 78

bfs - batterie füllungs systeme gmbh 10

Batteries International 61

Biasin Srl 25

Bitrode 94

BM-Rosendahl 65

Borregaard LignoTech 28

CAM SRL 20

CBE Srl & Ecowair 97

Chem Resist 87

CMWTEC Technologie GmbH 92

Co-effi cient Precision Engineering Inc 96

Continuus Properzi 34

Cosmec 95

Daramic 19

Digatron Power Electronics 1

Dross Engineering 50

EBC Korea 101/102

Eco-Bat Technologies 8

Eirich 70

ENGITEC TECHNOLOGIES – ITALY 79

Entek International 49

Farmer Mold & Machine Works Inc 63

Frötek Kunststofftechnik GmbH 67

Glatfelter Composite Fibers Business Unit 44

Goonvean Fibres Ltd 73

HADI-Group – HADI Maschinenbau GmbH – HADI Offermann 71

Hagemann-Systems 66

Hammond Group Inc 41

HOFMANN POWER SOLUTIONS 45

Hollingsworth & Vose 43

ICS Srl (SE.R.I. Group) 80/81

ILA/ALABC 35

Imerys Graphite & Carbon 98

Inbatec GmbH 69

Intercontinental Media 18a

ITS –International Thermal Systems Battery Manufacturing Equipment Division 99

Jiangsu CEMT Energy Equipment Co., Ltd 36/37

Jiangsu Jinfan Power Technology Co., Ltd 31

Jiangsu Sanhuan Industry and Commerce Co., Ltd 51

Källström Engineering AB 88

KraftPowercon India Pvt. Ltd 52

Kustan 91

La Pneumatica Srl / Ferrazza / Degani Aldo 29/30

LAP GmbH Laser Applikationen 7

Leader Tech United 86

LHAM Accurate Mold Company Ltd 6

M.A. Industries Porous Plastics Division 47

Mac Engineering 40/42

Mecondor 54

Microporous 103

MSS 74

MTH Metalltechnik Halsbrucke GmbH & Co KG 15

Oak Press 40/42

Offi cina Meccanica Romanese srl 62

OMI-NBE 64

Owens Corning 56

P.C. di POMPEO CATELLI 68

Penox Engineering 75/76

Pütz Prozessautomatisierung GmbH 53

Pyrotek 17

Quanzhou Yucry Traffi c Appliance Co., Ltd 85

Raman FibreScience Private Limited 82

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One of the most anticipated sessions at the 14th European Lead Battery Conference will cover the use of lead batteries in low emission vehicles. Some 17 sessions and papers will take place covering this topic many with multiple authors and speakers.

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sion vehicles will grow as they are in-creasingly accepted across the globe. The most widely used batteries for the low emission vehicle market are lead-acid batteries, but other chemis-tries including nickel-cadmium bat-teries (NiCad), metal hydride batter-ies (NiMH), and lithium ion batteries are also making progress in becoming

better accepted in this sector.The low emission market was val-

ued at $21.1 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow from $27.5 billion in 2012 to $103.13 billion by 2017. Some 826,000 low emission vehi-cles were shipped globally in 2011 and the number is expected to reach 3,532,000 by 2017.

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The presentation is called ePower Series Hybrid Drive-Train Transport Vehicle — A Novel Architecture for Reduced Fuel Consumption Utilizing Axion Power PbC Hybrid Battery Technology.

Michael Romeo is research and development manager at Axion Power International. He has been with Axion Power for fi ve years and has been directly involved in the development, manufacture, and testing of Axion’s lead-carbon battery.

Romeo has also been involved in research funded by both the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) and the US Department of Energy.

Jack Shindle is the vice president of engineering at Axion Power International responsible for project management of all engineering functions at the fi rm. Shindle has 18 years of experience working on materials, process and product development for semiconductor components, fuel cells, hydrogen generation and lead acid batteries. He has spent the last 10 years working in, or with, small start-up companies in the energy fi eld.

Romeo describes Axion Power’s PbC battery as cutting edge technology with the potential to change the way the world views energy storage. The fi rm has come a long way from its presentation (and public acknowledgement by BMW in its interest in its technology) at the Istanbul ELBC but has yet to achieve the adoption it had hoped for.

“Our high charge acceptance PbC battery is built upon the tried and true lead-acid battery platform, so it is safe and recyclable, but it provides signifi cant improvements with regard to longevity and charge acceptance,” says Romeo.

Romeo says in recent years renewable energy generation systems have gained traction in the global market as energy generation costs continue to rise while demand for clean energy solutions has increased. However, the match between the intermittency of renewable power and

the requirements of a stable grid have proved challenging.

“This technology, when coupled with Axion’s purpose built electronics systems, allows for solar energy storage and load shifting while providing opportunity for the user to participate in behind-the-meter frequency regulation,” he says.

“The frequency regulation model Axion is demonstrating shows signifi cant revenue generation that offsets the cost of the storage system. The product, designed around the PbC batteries’ high charge acceptance and series string voltage stability, holds signifi cant appeal to private consumers and business owners that have been affected by electrical grid instability. “

Romeo reckons that a major positive for the battery market has been the introduction of strict emissions regulations on passenger and freight-transport vehicles in the EU and North America — legislation that has driven the development of hybridized vehicle architectures.

The largest user of diesel fuel in the freight-transportation industry is the Class 8 tractor trailer group, which consumes more than 28 billion gallons of diesel a year and produces more than 310 megatonnes of CO

2

emissions. “These gas guzzlers were a natural

market for ePower Engine Systems to focus on as they advance their series hybrid drive-train technology,” he says. “The drive train is engine dominant —meaning the engine and generator power the truck’s drive motor. The goal is to run the diesel engine at constant speed and so obtain fuel savings, while using a large battery array (56 batteries) to provide boost when the truck needs additional power.

The heavy duty trucking industry has struggled to improve fuel consumption which, according to the EPA’s SmartWay Program statistics, has languished below 6 mpg for years. ePower has been attempting to demonstrate that existing architectures have been designed for acceleration and grade climbing have been overbuilt for hauling loads on reasonably fl at terrain (where the majority of their use occurs).

ePower has reduced the size of engines, motors, and motor generators; added a vector drive; and installed 56 batteries for boost to the system. “They experimented with various battery chemistries but realized that the best fi t for their new vehicle architecture, from a cost and functionality standpoint, was the Axion Power PbC battery,” he says.

“Field testing the ePower system utilizing PbC batteries has produced an approximate 35% fuel economy improvement and a comparable reduction in greenhouse emissions.”

This has been made economically viable by the PbC’s ability to charge and discharge rapidly while in a partial state-of-charge, along with its ability to self-equalize voltage while connected in series strings.

“With these novel characteristics, the PbC batteries are capable of providing power assist during acceleration, while recouping energy during coasting events — ultimately allowing for Class 8 engine size to be decreased from the standard 12.0-16.0L displacement to 4.0-6.0L without sacrifi cing vehicle performance and showing a full system investment payback potential of less than 30 months, he says.

“The system includes a 480V AC three-phase generator that is powered by a small displacement diesel engine. The 480VAC is supplied to a variable frequency drive, which rectifi es the AC to DC. The DC power is then inverted back to variable frequency AC, which is used to turn the motor that is connected to the drive train.

“The PbC batteries are connected to the DC bus in the VFD and power is allowed to fl ow in an out of the batteries as required by driving conditions.

“The tremendous charge acceptance of the PbC battery, along with its inherent string stability makes it perfectly suited for the application.”

LEAD CARBON: A NOVEL APPROACH TO FUEL SAVING

Romeo describes Axion Power’s PbC battery as cutting edge technology with the potential to change the way the world views energy storage.

One presentation to look out for is by Michael Romeo and Jack Shindle, two senior executives from Axion Power International who will discuss frequency regulation and hybrid class 8 trucks and specifi cally how the company’s PbC technology has made these applications viable in the marketplace.



The drivers underpinning the rapid growth of this market include in-creases in the global price of petrole-um-based fuel; new initiatives taken by different governments; the ever-in-creasing availability of different HEV models; and the continuous develop-ment in battery technology.

Restraints on this sector’s growth include a lack of support and infra-structure; power, performance, and higher cost as compared to ICE-vehi-cle end-user segments. The charging infrastructure market and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology are two future related opportunities for zero emis-sion vehicle market.

Philip Williams, a principal engineer

at Ricardo UK and the chief engineer of the ADEPT (ADvanced Electric Powertrain Technology) collaborative research project, says this topic will be one of the biggest themes of ELBC as a whole.

“One of the huge benefi ts of attend-ing will be to gain a better under-standing of the different opportuni-ties for lead batteries in low emission vehicles, and the work being under-taken to further develop the technol-ogy for these applications,” Williams says.

Williams, who was previously chief engineer of the Ricardo contribution

to a novel semi-robotic aircraft tow-ing tractor, covering vehicle dynamics simulation, control system specifi ca-tion, hydraulic system design, safety-critical software implementation, and on-vehicle test, will be presenting a paper on a specifi c project he is work-ing on through the ADEPT project, which is supported by the UK’s Tech-nology Strategy Board.

He says that the project will apply a 48V mild hybridization to a diesel en-gine with the additional application of 48V ancillaries and advanced ther-mal systems and waste heat recovery technologies.

“Our high charge acceptance PbC battery is built upon the tried and true lead-acid battery platform, so it is safe and recyclable, but it provides signifi cant improvements to longevity and charge acceptance” — Romeo, Axion Power

The presentation will describe how the ADEPT project is targeting a C-segment vehicle with very low CO

2

emissions — 75g/km — using low cost technologies, including a lead-acid battery

A presentation made jointly by fi ve researchers and executives will cover Modelling Dynamic Charge Acceptance of SLI Batteries for Micro-Hybrid Vehicles. The presenters are: Jan Kabzinski, Heide Budde-Meiwes, Ilka Jahn, Julia Kowal and Dirk Uwe Sauer, ISEA-RWTH Aachen University and the well respected Eckhard Karden, Ford R&D Europe, Germany

Kabzinski, a PhD student at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) at RWTH Aachen University, says the presentation will cover the fi ndings of a simulation model designed to represent the dynamic charge acceptance of lead-acid batteries in automotive applications. He says the event will help delegates gain a better understanding of what represents a new modelling approach to simulate DCA and its simulation results in comparison with measurement results.

“ISEA has already developed an impedance-based model. To represent effects which cannot be covered by impedance spectroscopy, physical models were added, such as for gassing,” Kabzinski says.

“Now the part of the model covering DCA is completely renewed, the approach is based on crystal radii distributions and covers main infl uences on DCA such as short-term history, rest times, temperature and state of charge.”

MODELLING DYNAMIC CHARGE ACCEPTANCE

Eckhard Karden (left). Jan Kabzinski: The ISEA has already developed an impedance-based model that represents effects that cannot be covered by impedance spectroscopy



“A Ford Focus demonstrator vehi-cle will be targeted at 75g/km CO2 as measured on the European Drive Cy-cle, with studies to demonstrate how to reduce CO2 to less than 70g/km, while maintaining a CO2/cost superi-or to an equivalent full hybrid electric vehicle,” he says.

The project, which includes a con-sortium comprising Ricardo, Ford Motor Company, CPT, Faurecia, the University of Nottingham and the Eu-ropean Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium, has involved a substan-

tial level of innovation.Some of the technological inno-

vations that have been necessary include the development of a low cost switch e-machine based on 48V Belt Starter Generator (BSG) tech-nology; the development of new high effi ciency 48V electric engine ancillaries; the fundamental system optimization of the BSG-to-engine enabled with e-ancillaries for best performance/cost; the development of low cost high capacity 48V ad-vanced lead acid battery energy storage; 48V enabled advanced ther-mal system technology including e-turbine and novel oil heating; 48V electric oil pump used to enable base engine effi ciency improvements with a novel low loss oil system; and 48V

BSG engine load control strategies and calibration toolset development for optimized emission feed gas and exhaust gas temperature control.

The presentation will describe how the ADEPT project is targeting a C-segment vehicle with very low CO2 emissions — 75g/km — using low cost technologies, including a lead-acid battery.

“This represents a signifi cant reduc-tion in CO2 over current best-in-class performance, while avoiding the high cost associated with full-hybrid sys-tems. The system has the potential to be widely adopted by OEMs as a pragmatic solution to affordably re-duce CO2 emissions while maintain-ing vehicle performance,” Williams says.

“Our 48V demonstrator will assist global carmakers in their technical due diligence, engineering validation and industrialization of 48V-based micro-mild hybrid vehicles that motorists can afford to buy” — Pascoe, Controlled Power Technologies

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While North America has often led the way when it comes to electric and hybrid vehicles, many believe Europe is well positioned to catch up due to the fact that it is already well equipped in terms of charging infrastructure. However, China has the potential to shift to low emission propulsion technology faster than its counterparts due to its ability to heavily invest in its development.

There are papers that refl ect this theme with some presenters discussing the present and future role that China may play in this market.

Shawn Peng, the vice president of Leoch International Technology, who is responsible for new product development and external technical exchange, will present a paper specifi cally examining the present status of lead-acid batteries for stop-start applications in China.

Peng, who graduated from China’s Nan-Kai University and has a masters in natural science from Louisiana State University, joined Leoch Group in 2006 as an engineer and was promoted to his current position in 2010. He is now the member of IEC/TC21/WG2- Stop-Start battery committee, a member of the SAE Stop-Start Battery Committee, and vice chair of the China Lead-Acid Battery Standardization Commission (Stop-Start Battery committee).

He says that within seven years, driven by the Chinese government, the country will be the biggest market for stop-start and micro hybrid EV applications. He believes

that absorbent glass matt (AGM) and enhanced fl ooded batteries (EFB) ,used for these applications will be produced at a rapidly growing rate in order to support OE car makers to match the Chinese government’s future goal of reducing CO

2 emissions and fuel

consumption. “International players and Chinese

domestic players will end up in competition in the next three years trying to win this market with the latest battery technologies as well as the most advanced equipment to ensure more effi cient production in a more energy saving manner,” Peng says. “This is an important topic for everyone who pays attention for global business.”

Stop-start automotive applications have become increasingly widespread lately but their initial development dates back to Toyota’s experiments with a Crown Sedan in the 1970. The Volkswagen group led the way in the 1980s and 1990s, though they made little commercial impact at that time. Since 2000 SLI lead-acid batteries (AGM and EFB) have become more widely used across Europe in these attempts to improve fuel effi ciency and meet environmental standards set out by the EU’s latest regulations.

Peng says that, since mid-2011, the same dynamic has started emerging in China — but at a much faster rate. A new government regulation covering automobile gas emissions is widely expected to stimulate the stop-start market in the next three to fi ve years but the momentum behind this might only peak in 2020.

The changes are driven in China by a desire to improve the environment smog occurs regularly in many big Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and has been acknowledged as causing shorter life spans and lung diseases. The government also wants to reduce gasoline consumption.

China’s new national energy policy The automotive industry development plan of energy saving type and new energy powered vehicles, 2012-2020, published in 2012, also encourages the Chinese automotive industry — including companies with foreign investors, those structured as joint ventures and domestic companies — to gear up to develop and manufacture more types of hybrid electrical vehicles from the pure electric powered vehicles.

Peng says there are many vagaries in the market. The micro-hybrid EV with STT function is preferred by OEM car makers and end consumers due to the cost advantage, the fact that it is relatively easier to develop, and concerns about the unclear future direction of EV technology in China.

“In this paper, we will review the status of STT application in China for last few years and will forecast stop-start battery usage in this market from 2015 to 2020. The China AGM and EFB SLI lead acid batteries production capacity trend will be estimated and the specifi c requirements on AGM and EFB types will be discussed according to China’s unique application circumstance. Future battery technology will also be discussed,” he says.

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Picking up on a similar theme will be Carsten Kaup, the team leader of the Hybrid and Electric Powertrain Systems development group at AVL Schrick in Germany, whose paper is entitled: A 48V Diesel Hybrid with Lead-Acid Batteries is not a Contra-diction: It is Reality.

Kaup says he will present the status of a joint development research pro-ject between AVL, ALABC, Hyundai and Valeo which is related to a die-sel powertrain utilizing 48V compo-nents.

Many of the fi ndings and innova-tions that have resulted from it could be applicable to other sectors. “48V is a hot topic in automotive power-train development. Beside micro and mild hybrid functionalities I will talk about electric supercharging which is nowadays especially in focus,” Kaup says.

The LC SuperHybridOne of the more anticipated papers covering this theme will be an update on the LC SuperHybrid programme. The presentation, called The LC Su-per Hybrid Programme: Addressing Market Demands for an Affordable Hybrid System Solution will be given by Nick Pascoe and Paul Bloore from Controlled Power Technologies, an

independent, clean-tech company specializing in the development of CO2 reduction for the automotive in-dustry.

Nick Pascoe, chief executive of Controlled Power Technologies, is a graduate mechanical engineer with early experience in engine develop-ment at Ford Motor Company and later work in an automotive engineer-ing consultancy in UK and Germany.

In 2007, he led the management buy-in of Visteon’s advanced power-train engineering activities, including a portfolio of CO2 reduction technol-ogy based on intelligent electrifi cation of the internal combustion engine.

Paul Bloore is functional safety manager and senior engineer at Pow-ertrain Integration at CPT. He is A chartered mechanical engineer with extensive experience in the automo-tive industry — he joined CPT in 2008 performing a number of roles covering the portfolio of products under development, with a particular focus on development testing.

“Our 48V demonstrator will assist global carmakers in their technical due diligence, engineering validation and industrialization of 48V-based micro-mild hybrid vehicles that mo-torists can afford to buy,” says Pas-coe.

“This is particularly as we’re now seeing rapidly maturing defi nitions of 48V architectures by leading interna-tional carmakers, supported by the global tier 1 supply base, and increas-ingly diverse powertrain and vehicle applications coming from the mar-ket.”

The LC Super Hybrid programme was conceived by ALABC and CPT

to show that signifi cant CO2 reduc-tion can be achieved through electric hybridization at low voltages (12-48 volts) complemented by the break-through of high power density from advanced lead-carbon batteries.

The 48V version of the LC Super Hybrid complements an existing 12V technology demonstrator. The more powerful 48V demonstrator offers greater functionality including torque assist to the petrol engine for launch and low speed transient acceleration. The vehicle also includes production-ready electric boosting technology sold by CPT to the tier 1 supplier Valeo based in France.

Second phase resultsThe ELBC presentation by Pascoe and Bloore will cover the initial re-sults from the second phase of de-velopment of the 48V vehicle and explore the potential released by the 48V UltraBattery pack coupled with the increase in power and capability of the integrated starter generator.

“In particular we’ll be talking about the practical considerations of the ac-tivation strategy, including drivabil-ity, state of charge management and obtaining improved fuel economy, which have been explored in more detail,” says Pascoe.

“The presentation will cover simu-lation combined with some of the actual test data with the aim of deliv-ering a highly effi cient but also very dynamic and enjoyable vehicle pack-age in a cost effi cient manner.”

The key point of interest is deliver-ing the majority of the benefi ts of a full hybrid vehicle, but at a fraction of the cost. The new 48V standard — which has been put forward by the VDA, a German automotive body — provides a basis for technology consolidation and is being pursued by numerous ve-hicle OEMs. It removes at least one of the obstacles to hybridization, that of the requirement for all service staff to be high voltage qualifi ed, but still enables higher power levels and ef-fi ciency than that of a conventional 12V architecture.

The LC Super Hybrid programme was conceived by ALABC and CPT to show that signifi cant CO

2 reduction can be achieved through

electric hybridization at low voltages (12V-48V) complemented by the breakthrough of high power density from advanced lead-carbon batteries.

“International players and Chinese domestic players will end up in competition in next three years trying to win this market with the latest battery technologies as well as most advanced equipment to ensure a highly effi cient production in a more energy saving manner — Peng, Leoch International Technology


PROFILE: ALLAN COOPER

Little did Allan Cooper know as he fl ew long haul to South Africa aged 22 that half a century later a suc-cession of long — and very long — fl ights would be part of his protracted working life. Or that the career he was about to embark on, was just a preparation for a yet more important second career.

The year was 1961. Allan, who had just graduated at Peterhouse College at Cambridge University with tripos in Natural Sciences and Metallurgy was off to play hockey — he was a University Blue — for a joint Ox-bridge team.

“After the sporting tour I returned to England with a bump,” says Coop-er. “I then had to fi nish the fi nal year of my so-called ‘sandwich course’

with Richard Thomas and Baldwins (RTB), a major steel producer.” In the UK one fast entry into management is to work for a company for one year, take one’s degree, and then do a fi nal year of work, hence the term sand-wich course.

Cooper went quite literally from the veldts of the Cape to the then-industrial heartland of England, fi rst

to Scunthorpe before moving on to the Midlands and then back to South Wales. He was then posted to the RTB Ebbw Vale plant as a tinplate metal-lurgist. After two years realising that little had changed in his work Cooper decided it was time to move on.

Cooper joined Associated Lead Manufacturers in November 1964 (part of the then Lead Industries

In 2008 Allan Cooper was awarded the International Lead Medal for his exceptional contributions to the lead industry in the fi elds of metallurgy, production, and battery development, particularly in electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The story isn’t over yet. Battery historian Kevin Desmond reports.

Taking the long view

“I was hired by a certain Douglas Laidler – the research director — as his personal assistant. His politics were way to the right of Genghis Khan and one of his claims to fame was that he had turned Margaret Thatcher down for a job”



Group — later to become the Cook-son Group). “I was hired by a Doug-las Laidler – the research director — as his personal assistant. His politics were way to the right of Genghis Khan and one of his claims to fame was that he had turned Margaret Thatcher down for a job,” Cooper says.

“On joining the company he greeted me by saying ‘Welcome to the lead in-dustry – pipe is fi nished — sheet lead is nearly gone and lead-acid batteries will probably be replaced by another chemistry’. Well he got the fi rst one right!”

After a brief time in London he moved to ALM’s factory in Chester. This was a secondary smelter but also produced various products from lead including sheet, die-castings and shot. Cooper spent the majority of his time there in the smelting and refi ning de-partment where his steelmaking expe-rience came in useful as he was able to introduce oxygen enrichment to speed up the smelting process.

He returned to London as personal assistant to the technical director just before the World Cup football fi nal in 1966 when for the fi rst (and only) time England was the winner. He re-calls that his fi rst priority in his move was to fi nd a shop that could install his fi rst colour TV in time for the fi nal — the day after moving in!

“At that time there appeared to be little in the way of ‘customer service’ – it was more a question of the phone

being answered to fi nd someone ask-ing for some battery alloy and being asked ‘How much antimony do you want in it? You can have between 3%-11%.’ Or ‘Oh you want some lead oxide — how much and what colour — you can have red, yellow or grey’.

Dispersion strengthened lead … and beyond“After a spike in the antimony price, there was a move to reduce the an-timony content in battery alloys — or remove it altogether — as this would have the effect of lowering water loss. I was asked to oversee some joint development work with St Joe Lead (now Doe Run) on disper-sion strengthened lead (DSL) which showed promise for a while.

“This was in the heady days of the lead industry when the then ILZRO director, Schrade Radke, had initiated the construction of a Lamborghini car with as much lead and zinc on it as possible — Mike Rose, then R&D manager of St Joe, politely declined

to have the brake pipes extruded in DSL!

“This work was rapidly superseded as around that time St Joe had hired a certain David Prengaman to work on lead calcium alloys and after our fi rst meeting we’ve remained friends ever since. Work was also going on in developing low antimony alloys and ALM initiated a programme with TBS Engineering by which we would produce the alloy and they would cast it under different conditions so we could mutually assist customers in using these new alloys for the ‘low maintenance’ battery.”

It was in early 1970s that love blos-somed. Allan met his wife to be Irene while they were both working with Associated Lead, Irene was a sales ex-ecutive in its export company Alme-co. One thing led to another and they married in October 1975. Within a few years they had two daughters — Sophie and Debbie. Recently the two have become grandparents with the arrival of twins, Harvey and Lila.

Cooper later had a spell managing

A major problem in demonstrating batteries by retro-fi tting into currently available vehicles is that these have been about three years in development and probably we take another two years to fi t and test the batteries so we are about fi ve years adrift in terms of vehicle development.

Left: Cooper was a Cambridge University Blue. Right: Early days after graduation working for steelmaking fi rm Richard Thomas and Baldwins

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the lead smelter at Millwall in Lon-don. After this he moved north to Newcastle as R&D Director when ALM relocated its head offi ce there in 1980.

“It was ironic,” says Cooper. “As a child, my father had pointed out the lead works to me from the Redheugh Bridge and now I had an offi ce in that very building.”

During his time there, Cooper was involved in many projects such as automated battery breaking, polypro-pylene recovery and a lead/calcium battery strip production line.

He then moved into the parent

group working on technical business development and helped set up a joint venture battery separator plant with the US’s Entek Corporation. This plant is still in operation but now back under the control of Entek.

The Cookson business had been very active in the takeover market — especially in the US and after the slump in 1987 — did not adequately retrench so he happily took an early retirement package after some 26 years with the company.

It was June 1991. Cooper little re-alized that the end of one career was but the signal for another to start —

and one that arguably has been infl u-ential in shaping the direction of the entire lead acid battery industry as well as, potentially — and he would probably blush here — changing the way the world drives.

Maternity leaveThe call to arms came in the form of an unlikely request for assistance from what was then known as the Lead De-velopment Association. “Could I help them out on a temporary six month consultancy contract as one of the technical staff was off on six months’ maternity leave?” says Cooper.

“I started in September — without a contract — and stayed (the lady never came back having become pregnant again). Thus my six month temporary assignment has become 23 years, and guess what I still don’t have a contract!”

Over the years the LDA has changed from market development to look af-ter lead’s interests on the environmen-tal front. Cooper’s role is now less technical and he is more associated with the successful series of European Lead Battery Conferences — helping on the programme committee and or-ganizing the exhibition.

“We fi rst tried the exhibition in Ge-neva in 1994 and had 14 table top displays,” he says. “This has since progressed to record attendances ap-proaching 800 attendees and over 100 exhibitor booths.”

In 1992, shortly after the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (AL-ABC) was set up by the International Lead Zinc Research Organisation (IL-ZRO) in the US, Cooper was asked to look at ways of setting up a sister or-ganisation in Europe with a suffi cient legal entity to enable the ALABC to ap-ply for research funding from Europe.

This resulted in the creation of the European Advanced Lead Bat-tery Consortium EEIG in November 1993. This consisted of many of Eu-rope’s lead smelting fi rms, the major battery producers and other suppliers to the industry.

The then chairman of the LDA, Alan Pugh, asked Cooper to put to-gether a research project on electric vehicle batteries for funding from the European Commission’s Brite-Euram industrial and materials technologies programme. Cooper won the project and was chosen as its co-ordinator,

So began a long and fruitful associa-tion with the ALABC.

This was scheduled to be a four year programme involving 13 organi-

This prompted another Insight trial with a retro-fi tted 144V UltraBattery pack which successfully covered 100,000 miles on the UK’s Millbrook Proving Ground test track with the only noteworthy incident being when the car hit a pheasant at speed on the high speed circuit. That said the batteries behaved impeccably.

Celebrating the 100,000 miles with Mike Kellaway (Provector) (left) and to right Mark Stevenson (Pasminco) and Pat Moseley (ALABC).



zations and costing a total of Ecu3.8 million (€3.8 million). This was later followed by a further 44 month EU project also on EV batteries costing €3.66 million and with 12 partner or-ganizations.

By the late 1990s interest in electric vehicles — especially with lead-acid batteries — was beginning to wane and the ALABC started to look at batteries for hybrid electric vehicles where power density is more impor-tant than energy density.

Although excellent progress had been made in the laboratory in the work to overcome the problem of sul-fation of the negative plate when lead acid batteries are subjected to high rate partial state-of-charge cycling — and huge strides had been made in other fi elds of battery development —

Cooper found it diffi cult to persuade car manufacturers that lead acid was up to the job.

Novel battery designsIt was therefore decided to demon-strate the batteries in a vehicle and an application was made under the UK Foresight Vehicle Programme for funding to retrofi t a Honda Insight with battery made up with a novel design of 2V spiral-wound cells modi-fi ed to have current offtakes top and bottom.

A major problem was encountered in tapping into the Honda electronics to essentially fool the system that it was still talking to a nickel metal hydride battery. This proved a very diffi cult problem to solve and, together with some battery problems, resulted in ma-

jor delays to the project. After one particularly unsuccessful

demonstration where the electronics were constantly tripping out, the pro-ject was nearly cancelled but Cooper, knowing a solution could be found, pleaded for a little more time. Provec-tor, a long term collaborator with the ALABC, fi nally solved the problems and the project was ultimately success-ful in that the car covered 50,000 miles before being retired.

The concept was sound but it still needed the right battery to take it fur-ther.

At this point, enter the UltraBattery. The battery coming from a CSIRO project in Australia was the invention of Lan Lam which combines ultra-capacitor technology with lead-acid battery technology in a single cell with a common electrolyte. In one test an UltraBattery outperformed a nickel metal hydride battery on a hy-brid test cycle.

This prompted another Insight trial with a retro-fi tted 144V UltraBat-tery pack which successfully covered 100,000 miles on the UK’s Millbrook Proving Ground test track with the

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only noteworthy incident being when the car hit a pheasant at speed on the high speed circuit. That said the batter-ies behaved impeccably.

Work by Effpower in Sweden on a bipolar design of lead-acid battery was producing some excellent results in the laboratory. “We had been keeping Honda informed about the work we had been doing on the Insight vehicles and they decided to take a more active interest in the work,” says Cooper.

“We bought a Honda Civic in 2007 to road test the battery at Millbrook and Honda provided an identical vehi-cle to exactly duplicate the test running of the retro-fi tted car to compare fuel consumption and performance. The battery was put into the car in two large blocks to simulate the split of voltage in the Honda car but this proved to be a mistake as the battery design proved unable to dissipate the heat generated and it dried the battery out.

“So we made another attempt, this time with the battery split into four 44V modules. This proved to be bet-ter in terms of heat control but un-fortunately one of the modules de-veloped a short circuit due to a crack in one of the ceramic bipolar plates. Effpower put this down to a manu-facturing defect but it is possible that the design could have been prone to vibration in a vehicle situation. This failure ultimately proved to be a ter-minal blow for Effpower.

“A major problem in demonstrating batteries by retro-fi tting into current-ly available vehicles is that these have been about three years in develop-ment and probably we take another two years to fi t and test the batteries so we are about fi ve years adrift in terms of vehicle development. A ma-jor breakthrough came in 2010 where we met Controlled Power Technolo-gies at the major JSAE Exhibition in Yokohama, Japan. They were exhibit-ing various CO2 reduction technolo-gies while we had the 100,000 mile Insight on display before donating it to Furukawa who had built the bat-teries.

Working to the future“Their common interest in low cost CO2 reduction was to result in future talks between the organizations. This has resulted in us cooperating with them to build two vehicles to demon-strate how the use of a down-sized en-gine in a vehicle can be performance enhanced by the use of an electric su-percharger in combination with a tur-bocharger to restore drivability.”

The electric supercharger is driven by regenerated energy from braking with an enhanced belt-driven starter generator stored in an advanced lead carbon battery. The fi rst vehicle (a 1.4 litre VW Passat) was built with a 12V electrical system and delivered emis-sion reductions of 20%-25% when compared with the 1.8 litre version with which the converted car has sim-ilar performance.

The added cost is estimated to be somewhere between €750-€1,250 which is well below the add-on for full hybrids such as the Honda Civic or Toyota Prius or plug in hybrids which all have very expensive, high voltage battery packs. This has more recently been followed up with a 48V/12V dual voltage vehicle based on the same 1.4 litre version. This has a much more powerful starter gen-erator (8kW as against 2kW-3kW) allowing provision of direct electrical assist on the engine as well as other functionality such as the option of putting big power users including air-con or water and oil pumps onto the regenerative circuit.

“During the last three years, we have been actively demonstrating these ve-hicles to car manufacturers in Europe and the US with a lot of interest being shown,” says Cooper. “The EALABC is now working directly with Ford and Hyundai in two separate projects to ‘hybridise’ diesel powered vehicles with this system to drive CO2 emis-sions down below 80g/km.

CPT and EALABC received a Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership Carbon

Champions Award in 2012 for their work on the so-called LC SuperHy-brid. “As a consequence of this we have also been nominated as one of the UK entries for the European Busi-ness Awards for the Environment in 2014.

Allan Cooper, now 76 years old, continues to plan ahead: “In the fu-ture we might see an increase in the production of smaller engine cars overall. What has been added is a combination of turbo and super-charger to remove the turbo lag and improve the drivability. The potential of direct electrical assist to the crank-shaft adds a further dimension. The industry is going to have to start clas-sifying things differently. Cars may no longer be categorized in terms of litres but instead by torque or horse-power. Ultimately, the consumer will get more out of smaller vehicles.”

Cooper has no immediate plans for retirement. “Why should I?” he says. “There’s still so much to do!”

However, since the arrival of twin grandchildren in November 2012, pressures for creating more spare time have increased but have also resulted in the move of the home offi ce to the bottom of the garden. This he con-tinues to enjoy along with the (too) occasional game of golf. Deep down however, there remains the desire to see one of these low cost, lead-carbon battery-based hybrids on the road.

He also wonders what dizzy po-litical heights he might have reached if Douglas Laidler had turned him down as well!

CPT and EALABC received a Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership Carbon Champions Award in 2012 for their work on the so-called LC SuperHybrid.

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ADVANCED BATTERIES

This potentially technical session will have six different speakers explain-ing six often very different ways in which the use of carbon in the indus-try either is or could potentially infl u-ence battery performance and design — often with very radical outcomes.

Nick Desimone, director of prod-uct management at EnerG2, says his fi rm has made technological break-throughs in this fi eld.

“In recent years, carbon additives have enabled signifi cant performance improvements in lead acid batteries but there is considerable variation in the properties of carbon-based products and their interactions in the NAM [negative active material],” he says.

He says EnerG2 has developed a

technology enabling the production of ultra-high purity, novel carbons and a broad IP portfolio. “This ca-pability allows the development of carbons optimized for specifi c ap-plications and performance charac-teristics, both for present and next generation battery designs,” he says.

Ernst Ferg and Bolo Lukanyo, both from the Nelson Mandela Metro-politan University in Port Elizabeth South Africa, will jointly present a paper entitled Effect of Carbon Na-notube Additives on the Negative Ac-tive Mass Morphology of Lead-Acid Batteries at High Rate Partial State of Charge Cycling.

Ferg is an associate professor at the university lecturing in the fi eld of electrochemistry and physical

chemistry. Lukanyo is a second year masters student at the university re-searching lead-acid batteries.

Ferg’s talk will focus on the integra-tion of different energy storage sys-tems to improve the life cycle capa-bilities of the lead acid battery. “We looked at subjecting lead acid cells with relatively small supercapacitors to show improvement in capacity cy-cle tests,” he says.

He says delegates interested in combining energy storage devices in various systems applications will fi nd the presentation of interest.

Morphological changeLukanyo’s part of the presentation will focus on the infl uence of carbon additives on the negative electrode

For almost two decades there has been a growing awareness that the inclusion of carbon could be the most important factor in the development of a new generation of better lead acid batteries.

The infl uence of carbon on battery design


ADVANCED BATTERIES

of lead-acid batteries examining a comparison on the morphologi-cal changes occurring on different plates, and the improvement in the number of cycles.

He says the talk will give delegates an overview on what type of research is being done over the world.

Paul Everill, director of technology and lead acid batteries at Molecu-lar Rebar Design, will present along with colleagues Nanjan Sugumaran, lead researcher at Molecular Rebar Design, Steven Swogger, the chief fi -

nancial offi cer of Molecular Rebar Design, and Diwakar Dubey, general manager of Pacifi c Batteries, based in the Fiji Islands.

Their paper, called Molecular Re-bar: Discrete Carbon Nanotubes as a Game-Changing Advancement in Lead-Acid Battery Performance will present the fi ndings of research con-cerning Molecular Rebar Design’s new carbon nanotube derivative, Molecular Rebar, and the associated products specially formulated for lead acid batteries, Molecular Rebar Lead Negative and Molecular Rebar Lead Positive.

Everill earned his doctorate at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, studying the surface chemistry of bio-logical macromolecules with the goal of developing smarter, more targeted medicines. He eventually moved into the growing fi eld of nanotechnology.

At Molecular Rebar Design, he was instrumental in formulating the func-tionalized carbon nanotubes known as Molecular Rebar into a lead acid battery-compatible additive. He, along with Sugumaran, directs all research-based activities of Molecu-

lar Rebar Design’s lead acid battery initiatives.

Everill says the derivative has many advantages that will be explained including its ability to increase the charge acceptance of lead acid bat-teries by 200%, its ability to reduce energy losses of lead acid batteries by 15%, its ability to increase HRPSoC and SBA life cycle performance by 250%, and its ability to decrease bat-tery gassing by a mechanism poten-tially involving hydrogen adsorption.

“Although carbon nanotubes have been tested for years as lead acid bat-tery additives, there have been no successful technological implementa-tion because of the negative effects that increased carbon content has on paste rheology and on reserve capac-ity and cold cranking,” he says.

“Only by using the right carbon nanotubes, those that are largely free from impurities and which ex-ist as individualized entities instead of bundled, entwined masses, can the promise of nanotechnology be un-locked.”

He believes that the fi rst successful implementation of carbon nanotube technology and its benefi ts in full-scale battery production will be a big talking point at the conference.

On behalf of several other research-ers and academics, Manfred Gelbke, the head of R&D and technical cus-tomer support at Akkumulatorenfab-rik MOLL, Germany, will present a paper entitled the Infl uence of the In-teractions Between Carbon and Or-ganic Expander on the Crystalliza-tion Behaviour of Lead in Lead-Acid Battery Electrodes.

Gelbke has a doctorate in chem-istry from Humboldt University of Berlin and joined the lead-acid bat-tery industry in 1985. He has worked

“In recent years, carbon additives have enabled signifi cant performance improvements in lead acid batteries but there is considerable variation in the properties of carbon-based products and their interactions in the NAM” — Desimone, EnerG2

Miki Oljaca and Paolina Atanassova, both senior executives at the Cabot Corporation in the US, will present on carbon additives for advanced lead acid applications.

Atanassova says that although it is clear that carbon additives have an effect in reducing negative plate sulfation — leading to improvements in cyclability and dynamic charge ac-ceptance — both for valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) and fl ooded lead-acid batteries: “At the same time, other properties such as high rate discharge and water loss can be negatively impacted by the addition of carbon especially at high load-ings,” she says.

“The presentation will discuss new model and test data on strategies to balance water loss and high rate

discharge characteristics for high carbon batteries while preserving the benefi ts of high dynamic charge ac-ceptance and improved cycle life.”

She says that understanding the fundamentals of higher water loss as a function of carbon loading and properties is critical for identifying so-lutions where the benefi ts of carbons on dynamic charge acceptance and cyclability are further increased with-out a negative impact on water loss.

“There is no comprehensive model yet that explains all aspects of how carbon modifi es the negative plate morphology and reduces nega-tive plate sulfation, and as a carbon producer we are encouraging the discussion on the carbon properties and what optimization is needed for further advances,” she says.

WATER LOSS

ADVANCED BATTERIES

as head of R&D and in several other positions at industrial battery pro-ducer BAE Berlin up to 1999. In 2000, he moved to Akkumulatoren-fabrik MOLL as head of R&D and technical customer support. Since then he has been responsible for de-velopment of automotive batteries (Pb-Ca-fl ooded, AGM, EFB) and bat-tery monitoring systems.

The rise and rise of microhybridsGelbke says the majority of cars, pro-duced worldwide in the next decades, will have combustion engines. There-fore, the increase of fuel economy of these vehicles is key to meeting the goals of CO2 roadmaps.

He says that micro-hybrid func-

tions — start-stop and regen — are important and cost effi cient tools to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emission and will be applied very quickly to most of the new car mod-els. The status and trends at regional markets of the world are different and will be discussed in his talk.

But he says that the micro-hybrid application is just one part of in-creasingly complex requirements for batteries in automotive use. “Recent battery development has to improve signifi cantly across several perfor-mance parameters as cycling endur-ance, high power supply and charge acceptance as well as to combine di-vergent battery characteristics in one design,” Gelbke says.

His paper gives a review of the

combination of several increased technical requirements for micro-hy-brid batteries and shows the progress in battery development achieved over the past years resulting in improved battery types, AGM and EFB.

Both technologies, already used today in micro-hybrid vehicles, will be discussed with respect to their strengths and weaknesses. The po-

“Although carbon nanotubes have been tested for years as lead acid battery additives, there have been no successful technological implementation because of the negative effects that increased carbon content has on paste rheology and on reserve capacity and cold cranking” —Everill, Molecular Rebar Design


ADVANCED BATTERIES

tential for further improvements will also be presented. “Due to the in-crease of technical requirements for micro-hybrid cars with even more ef-fi cient recuperation, work on the next generation of micro-hybrid lead-acid batteries is well underway,” he says.

The implementation of the micro-hybrid function to most new cars has a signifi cant impact on the technical requirements for batteries used in such an application. New automo-tive batteries have been needed with much better performance, for exam-ple, for extremely good cycling capa-bility, very high cold cranking power and much better charge acceptance.

“A couple of years ago, many bat-tery experts thought that AGM tech-nology would be the only option for such a combination of diffi cult re-quirements. Our paper shows clearly that fl ooded battery design can be im-proved in a way fulfi lling all require-ments of the automotive industry.

“Thus, the new developed fl ooded micro-hybrid batteries give a signifi -cant contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions. And, there is room for improvements to even higher charge acceptance resulting in an even more effi cient recuperation,” he says.

Kandy Yeung, a former engineer for two start-up biomaterials companies

in Seattle, in the US state of Wash-ington who is now studying for her doctorate at the Hong Kong Univer-sity of Science and Technology, will present on the benefi ts of graphene as the negative additive in prolong-ing PSoC cycle life and sulfation sup-pression.

She says this research describes the possible roles of graphene in charge and discharge reactions and notes that she is looking forward to seeing the other presentations in this session including those by Moseley, Everill from the Molecular Rebar Design, Furukawa from The Furukawa Bat-tery and Valenciano from Exide Technologies.

“I have read their publications and it will be a great opportunity to dis-cuss and learn from these outstand-ing scholars and researchers,” she says.

Jusuf Hassoun, assistant research scientist at the chemistry department of the University of Rome Sapienza, will give a report on a lead acid bat-tery containing a carbon additive in a pouch-cell confi guration character-ized by higher energy density and a smaller size.

Hassoun previously worked in an industrial company for three years before completing a PhD in Mate-rial Science in the fi eld of advanced lithium ion batteries in 2009.

For the last four years he has been visiting researcher at the Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea, and supervised the activity regarding the new generation energy storage systems, such as lithium sulfur and lithium air batteries.

He has also been co-author of more than 80 papers in international jour-nals in the fi eld of material science, electrochemistry and energy storage systems.

He says delegates interested in the progress of energy storage systems will fi nd this talk helpful. He also expects this to be a big theme at the event more generally.

This research describes the possible roles of graphene in charge and discharge reactions and notes that she [Kandy Yeung] is looking forward to seeing the other presentations in this session including those by Moseley, Everill from the Molecular Rebar Design, Furukawa from The Furukawa Battery and Valenciano from Exide Technologies.

“A couple of years ago, many battery experts thought that AGM technology would be the only option for such a combination of diffi cult requirements. Our paper shows clearly that fl ooded battery design can be improved in a way fulfi lling all requirements of the automotive industry” — Gelbke, Akkumulatorenfabrik MOLL

Kandy Yeung: the benefi ts of graphene as the negative additive in prolonging PSoC cycle life and sulfation suppression

Jusuf Hassoun: carbon additives in a pouch-cell confi guration char-acterized by higher energy density and a smaller size


DELEGATES ROUND-UP

Kandy Yeung, a former engineer for two start-up biomaterials companies in Seattle, Washington, believes a big talking point at the event will be around market projections of lead-ac-id batteries as well as the latest work on improving the design and manu-facturing of lead-acid batteries.

“I am most interested in learning the work of carbon additives from other researchers. I am looking forward to meeting presenters from all over the world, in particular Pat Moseley, Paul Everill from the Molecular Rebar De-sign, Jun Furukawa from The Furu-kawa Battery Co., and Exide’s Valen-ciano. I have read their publications and it will be a great opportunity to discuss and learn from these outstand-

ing scholars and researchers,” she says.Paolina Atanassova, a senior ex-

ecutive at the Cabot Corporation in the US, believes a big talking point will be around how improvements can be delivered in start stop hybrid cars.

Advanced lead-acid batteries, in-cluding absorbent glass mat (AGM) and enhanced fl ooded batteries (EFB), are currently the preferred battery so-lution for start stop hybrid cars due to their broad manufacturing base, safety and improved performance compared to conventional starting-lighting-ignition (SLI) batteries, she notes, adding that the start stop capa-bility will likely be a standard feature in all new cars models.

But further improvements are need-

ed to deliver even higher energy sav-ings to the consumers,” she says. “The effect of carbon additives and other expander components on dynamic charge acceptance will be a main top-ic.”

In this context, there are several presentations she is looking forward to attending. “Both the session on “Lead Acid Batteries for Low Emis-sion Vehicles” and “Energy Storage for Future Electricity” have a great selection of speakers and I plan to at-tend as many as possible,” she says.

Nick Desimone, director of Prod-uct Management at EnerG2, says a central theme for the conference will be the importance of focusing on lead acid battery research and development

The taste of

anticipationAhead of the 14ELBC, delegates will be poring over the schedule, studying the presentations and pondering how to make the most of this annual event. With this in mind, we asked a selection of delegates and speakers what they believe will be the biggest talking points at the event and what they hope to gain by attending.


DELEGATES ROUND-UP

to allow for continued performance ad-vancements and competitiveness rela-tive to other chemistries such as lithium ion. He is particularly looking forward to Christophe Pillot’s updated market forecasts. “He never fails to provide ac-curate and insightful outlooks for the automotive market,” Desimone says.

Jusef Hassoun, assistant research scientist at the Chemistry Depart-ment of the University of Rome Sa-pienza, believes a big talking point at ELBC will be the role of the lead acid battery as an energy storage system for renewable energy sources as well as the energy density and the costs associated with this.

He is particularly interested in pres-entations on global warming and lead-carbon batteries by Pat Moseley due to the effective relationship between the energy storage system and the mitiga-tion of the global pollution.

Philip Williams, a principal engi-neer at Ricardo UK and the chief engineer of the ADEPT (ADvanced Electric Powertrain Technology) col-laborative research project, will be pre-senting a paper on a specifi c project he is working on through the ADEPT pro-ject, which is supported by the Technol-ogy Strategy Board.

He says he will be attending other presentations also focusing on 48V ve-hicle projects. As such, speakers on his radar include Allan Cooper, Carsten Kaup and Nick Pascoe and Paul Bloore.

Shawn Peng, vice president of Le-och International Technology respon-sible for new product development and external technical exchange, believes lead acid battery technologies for the future will feature across the event as major themes. He reckons three areas that will be top of the agenda: mild hybrid EV-high voltage lead acid solu-tions; micro hybrid EV-12V systems; and renewable energy systems.

There are numerous presentations or speakers that Peng is looking forward to seeing. These include the presenta-tion on the HEV, P-HEV and EV mar-ket by Christophe Pillot; and a talk on the future of Li-Ion battery recycling by Linda Gaines. In relation to this presentation, Peng says: “This is one key challenge for Li-ion batteries. If re-cycling cannot be solved, it will mean environmental concerns for the public and governments which will lower the market share for lithium ion batteries”

Other topics that will grab his atten-tion include several talks on improve-ments in industrial batteries and en-hanced fl ooded batteries as well as the use of battery additives.

Mitch Bregman, president of the Energy and Industrial Systems Division at Hollingsworth & Vose where he oversees H&V’s global battery separator business, will present on global market trends for industrial lead acid batteries.

Bregman, who has spent over 30 years in the lead-acid battery business and was formerly president of Exide’s Industrial Energy Americas business, says he will discuss the rapid change occurring in the battery industry globally against backdrop of its customers evolving demands.

“The global industrial battery market continues to evolve based on the changing needs of its diversifi ed and demanding customer base. This paper will use industry sales data as well as information gathered from industry experts to analyze both the global stationary and motive power battery markets,” Bregman says.

“We will examine the trends

and market drivers for each of the markets by region, application, and product line to draw conclusions about the future business outlook for our industry.”

Bregman looking for rapid change in global battery industry

KEEPING PACE WITH CHANGE

“The global industrial battery market continues to evolve based on the changing needs of its diversifi ed and demanding customer base. This paper will use industry sales data as well as information gathered from industry experts to analyze both the global stationary and motive power battery markets”


DELEGATES ROUND-UP

Jack Shindle, the vice president of engineering at Axion Power In-ternational, says a big talking point will be how the battery industry, which he says is working desperately to improve upon renewable energy products from automotive to battery energy storage system applications, can help end users understand upcom-ing technologies and drive forward acceptance into the marketplace.

Jan Kabzinski, a PhD student at the Institute for Power Electron-ics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) at RWTH Aachen University, believes the main topics at the event will be new battery designs and applications, especially in cars. “I am looking for-ward to attending presentations of renowned speakers on their research, results, methods and new trends in in-dustry,” she adds.

Patrick Moseley, a long-time and highly regarded researcher in his fi eld whose previous roles include manager of electrochemistry at the Interna-tional Lead Zinc Research Organisa-tion in North Carolina and president of the Advanced Lead–Acid Battery Consortium, believes the two main talking points will be: the continu-ing efforts to optimize the benefi cial effects of including certain forms of carbon in the negative plate; and the exploration of the opportunities for lead-based batteries in the stationary storage of electricity (renewables and smart grid applications).

Friedrich Dempwolff, vice presi-dent of industry and governmen-tal relations for Johnson Controls Power Solutions EMEA, and presi-dent of EUROBAT, says a lot of de-bate can be expected around the issue of energy storage.

“Batteries can serve for energy stor-age purposes for on-grid and off-grid applications which makes them an essential element in the renewable en-ergy debate. One of the urgent issues to be addressed concerns the question of the uptake of renewable energy in the energy grid with batteries offering a technology that is readily available.

“However, a regulatory framework

is lacking at European level that en-courages the use of batteries for en-ergy storage purposes.

“Furthermore, I am expecting some interesting presentations and interven-tions in the session on lead batteries for low emission vehicles. Advanced lead-based batteries in automotive ap-plications play a pivotal role in terms of fuel effi ciency and reduced CO2 emissions,” Dempwolff says.

In addition to this, he says he is also particular interested in presentations from the session covering the global outlook. “This session includes a number of speakers from the US and it is always interesting to learn about challenges and opportunities that our industry faces on both sides of the At-lantic,” he says.

Linda Gaines, a systems analyst at the Center for Transportation Re-search at Argonne National Labora-tory, is another delegate who believes that problems caused by lithium ion batteries at secondary lead smelters will be a very hot topic. “Beyond that, I’m hoping to learn more about the lead industry,” she says.

Ernst Ferg, an associate profes-sor at the university lecturing in the fi eld of electrochemistry and physical chemistry at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth South Africa, thinks the conference will focus more on the lead-acid batteries in applications spe-cifi cally looking at the behaviour of the battery in various demand driven applications that can range from EV to stand by power support.

Bolo Lukanyo, a second year masters student at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University researching lead-acid batteries, expects to learn about new designs and future energy storage systems as well as market re-lated developments for lead-acid bat-tery systems.”

In particular, he says he is looking forward to sessions covering the use of lead batteries in low emission vehi-cles and the Energy Storage for Future Electricity session.

“This is because these two sessions

focus on the future development and growth in the lead-acid industry, while lead-acid batteries could lose the au-tomobile industry to lithium-ion sys-tems,” he says. “In terms of the global energy storage crisis, what solution does the lead-acid battery have in store for us?”

Paul Everill, director of technology and lead acid batteries at Molecular Rebar Design, believes the successful implementation of carbon nanotube technology in full-scale battery pro-duction will be a big talking point. He is also keen to hear about other cutting edge research, use the event to help identify new markets and possibili-ties for his own products and learning where various controversies lie in the fi eld regarding carbon additives.

Manfred Gelbke, the head of R&D and technical customer support at

OAK’s Kent Lancaster: advanced lead acid battery technologies generally as well as new equipment and materials for lead acid batter-ies will be the biggest themes

“As a supplier, our main interest is in battery makers’ presentations and namely dealing with battery technology for the micro hybrid market. It gives a general indication on market trends and on technical requirements in which AGM or pasting paper can play an important role” — Sylvie Bayle, Bernard Dumas

Chloride Technical and Trading Limited, Clifton Industrial Estate, Rake Lane, Clifton, Swinton, Manchester, M27 8LT, England.Tel: +44 (0)161 793 5000 Fax: +44 (0)161 794 8583

e-mail: [email protected]

www.chloride-technical.com


DELEGATES ROUND-UP

Akkumulatorenfabrik Moll predicts three main talking points: lead bat-teries for low emission vehicles, the infl uence of carbon on battery design and advances in battery technology. He is particularly interested in pres-entations about micro-hybrids, about carbon or other additives to the active material but also about research sub-jects as they can be useful for further improvements of lead batteries.

Cesare Catelli, general manager and technical and R&D Manager at

PC di Pompeo Catelli, believes the theme of going greener will be a big topic at the event with all the various meanings this may have.

Dennis Been, systems sales man-ager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Pyrotek in the Neth-erlands, also believes the green theme will reign specifi cally in relation to carbon emissions, the environmental footprint of companies and sustain-able technologies. “I am interested in hearing papers by battery producers

Ed Shaffer, the founder and chief executive of Advanced Battery Concepts, will present a paper called GreenSeal Bipolar Technology for Large-Format, Lead-Acid Batteries.

“We will share some bi-polar battery design insights and review our battery performance advantages over conventional lead acid batteries using real comparative data derived from our production batteries and competitor production batteries,” Shaffer says.

He says the talk will also discuss the company’s readiness for production commencement and state why we believe its designs will have signifi cant impact on the lead acid battery market. “This is due to the superior performance, cost of manufacture and >45% lead content reduction for the same stored energy,” he says.

Grzegorz Pilatowicz, a team leader at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) specializing in modelling, simulation, diagnostics and life-time estimation of lead-acid batteries, will present a paper called Determination of the Lead-Acid Battery’s Dynamic Response using Butler-Volmer Equation for Advanced Battery Management Systems in Automotive Applications.

He says he will discuss what he calls the highly accurate voltage estimation algorithm, which is going to be implemented in the BMS realized by Intelligent Battery Sensor

(IBS), which is installed in the most of micro-hybrid vehicles.

“The core of my algorithm (Butler-Volmer equation) is not new but the way how I integrated it in the whole BMS is very novel,” he says. “The novelty is also related to its scalability and adaptivity with different battery sizes, manufacturers, technologies etc. Furthermore, I will speak about its potential as the supporting tool for state-of-charge and state-of-health estimation.”

Smart BMS solutions are important for achieving longer expected life time of the battery systems for both stationary and automotive applications.

“Only the development of enhanced AGM or fl ooded lead-acid batteries and highly accurate and smart BMS solutions will lead to introduction of much better products based on lead-acid batteries to the market,” he says. “Advanced BMS not only know the state of the battery but also actively infl uence the energy management of the system so that the expected life is signifi cantly increased.”

“Using it even standard batteries which are currently present on the market can achieve much longer expected life time and better performance. I would like to appeal to the audience to pay more attention to BMS science because otherwise even the best battery will prematurely fail due to not optimized operation. When you look through the programme of the ELBC you will notice that I am one of the few speakers who will discuss this topic.”

ADVANCES IN BATTERY TECHNOLOGY

“The industry needs to embrace and invest in product technology to improve performance and cycle life so any of the presenters advocating investment in this area help our cause” — Ed Shaffer, Advanced Battery Concepts

AVL Schrick’s Carsten Kaup: “48V is a hot topic in automotive power-train development.”

“Only the development of enhanced AGM or fl ooded lead-acid batteries and highly accurate and smart BMS solutions will lead to introduction of much better products based on lead-acid batteries to the market”


DELEGATES ROUND-UP

and how they cope with rules and regulations and how they turn these into benefi ts,” he says.

Max Mandt-Merck, business de-velopment manager at LAP, believes the industry will be talking about the issue of combining lithium-ion and other alternative battery sources such as ultra capacitors. “Furthermore, there might be continued debate on the use of carbon additives to extend service life. I also think, further qual-ity enhancement features for produc-tion will be discussed,” Mandt-Merck says.

In terms of presentations or speakers he is looking out for, he is interested in looking at presentations regarding the lead supply situation as this links into his company’s system solution. “We are also very interested in learning about lithium-ion-recycling processes, market trends in general,” he says.

Sylvie Bayle, R&D manager in Ber-nard Dumas, says carbon additives in relation to battery performance will be a main point of interest among battery makers as well as the perfor-mance of EFB and AGM batteries.

“All presentations seem interesting but as a supplier, our main interest is in battery makers’ presentations and namely dealing with battery technol-ogy for the micro hybrid market. It gives a general indication on market trends and on technical requirements in which AGM or pasting paper can play an important role,” she says.

Kent Lancaster, vice president of sales for Oak Press Solutions, says advanced lead acid battery technolo-gies generally as well as new equip-ment and materials for lead acid bat-teries will be the biggest themes.

John Wertz, the global product development manager for Hollings-worth and Vose Battery Products, says the start/stop and grid storage market segments will be big themes.

“These are proving to be huge op-portunities for the battery industry as a whole, however, these segments are

presenting new and different perfor-mance challenges. Battery manufac-turers and suppliers will need to bring a very high level of creativity and in-novation to the market in order to meet these challenges,” he says.

Dario Cericola, an application sci-entist in the R&D Laboratory of Im-erys Graphite and Carbon (formerly TIMCAL Graphite and Carbon), says advanced lead acid batteries and car-bons in the negative plate will be the big themes. Cericola is also interested in any presentation dealing with car-bons in advanced lead acid batteries, “in order to follow the recent trends in this fi eld”.

John Wood, the chief executive of Ecoult, believes new market op-portunities along with the protection

of existing markets against alternate technologies will be the major themes. In this context, he says he is very in-terested in the technical programme. “There are a number of topics of in-terest that we are working on in real time,” he says.

Peter Stevenson, senior techni-cal coordinator at Yuasa Battery Europe, expects energy storage in the context of increased renewables generation to be a hot topic for in-dustrial battery application. “In addi-tion to this, for automotive the rapid penetration of idle-stop systems and their effects on SLI battery construc-tion should be interesting,” he says. “As will the proliferation of alterna-tive battery technologies in commer-cial use and their effect on lead acid markets.”

Ed Shaffer, the founder of Ad-vanced Battery Concepts, says that the ELBC is typically automotive fo-cused so stop/start technology will feature highly. “In addition, carbon additives to improve battery perfor-mance and other methods of increas-ing battery performance such as cycle life and PSOC will be topics,” he says.

“The industry needs to embrace and invest in product technology to im-prove performance and cycle life so any of the presenters advocating in-vestment in this area help our cause.”

Grzegorz Pilatowicz, a team leader at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA), believes the main general talking points will be: 48V systems for extended micro-hybrid vehicles; understanding of the role of carbon and mechanisms, which improve the performance of the lead-acid batter-ies; new designs and changes, which could be done to improve the ex-pected life time, dynamic charge ac-ceptance and the like; hybrid systems where lead-acid batteries are installed together with lithium-ion batteries; improved manufacturing; and appli-cation related reports (mainly auto-motive applications but also station-ary ones).

Pilatowicz is looking forward to the presentations, where companies Moll and JCI are involved. “It is because their studies are usually very informa-tive and well presented. In addition to this, I will defi nitely listen to some presentations about the improvements in the battery design, particularly Im-provements in Flooded Lead-Acid Batteries for a Better Cycling Life Per-formance under Different Surround-ing and PSoC Conditions. Closing the gap with AGM batteries for Microhy-brid Applications.”

“In terms of the global energy storage crisis, what solution does the lead-acid battery have in store for us?”

I will defi nitely be listening to some presentations about the improvements in the battery design, particularly the paper on Improvements in Flooded Lead-Acid Batteries for a Better Cycling Life Performance under Different Surrounding and PSoC Conditions. Closing the gap with AGM batteries for Microhybrid Applications.” — Grzegorz Pilatowicz


SUPPLIERS’ FORUM

Divided into a larger number of smaller presentations, each speaker in the suppliers’ forum gets just 10 minutes to pitch their latest product developments. This session comprises a wide range of presentations from companies often involved in highly technical industries — yet also ones that can be extremely important to the batteries industry and have the potential to revolutionize the way it operates.

Björn Mentzer, vice president of marketing and sales, at Abertax, will present on the latest developments in battery monitoring devices, specifi cal-ly devices that can be accessed online and controlled remotely.

Specifi cally, he will cover technology developed by Abertax. During a re-cent exhibition in Hanover, he says the

company enjoyed huge interest in the product. “Our system is like your doc-tor having a control device that auto-matically tells you your health status, so they can advise and also detect in advance illness. What is still only part of the future for humans is available from Abertax,” Mentzer says.

Mentzer says the presentation will cover the fi rm’s fi eld experience with online battery monitoring units and how much companies can save by us-ing the system. He says delegates at-tending the presentation will also see the potential of the system from an R&D perspective.

The Battery Management System developed by Abertax, a wireless e2BMU solution, provides battery data through the internet in real time. “This paper presents the innovative

design concept of this solution and the fl exibility it offers, to ensure vital basic battery information through an internet website,” Mentzer says. “The battery data is continuously moni-tored, stored and analyzed by dedi-cated software, which automatically takes the necessary actions to ensure reliable and safe battery operation.

“The data is sent periodically to a webserver. The results of various fl eet operations in different motive power applications spread out all over the world will be presented. The fi eld ex-perience and results will demonstrate the huge advantages of using this bat-tery monitoring technology especially battery leasing and rental applica-tions. The paper will also address the fi nancial savings when using this tech-nology.”

The suppliers’ forum represents a chance for different companies representing a diverse range of industries, chemistries technologies to showcase their wares. Batteries International contacted some of the speakers for a taste of what delegates should expect.

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SUPPLIERS’ FORUM

Cesare Catelli, general manager and technical and R&D manager at PC di Pompeo Catelli, will discuss ways of improving the curing process for the production of lead-acid battery plates with reduced energy consumption and better crystal morphology.

In 2006, Catelli was a fi nalist at the International Award for Energy and Innovation, organized by the AL-TRAN Foundation in Paris, with a project on improvements in lead-acid battery capacity with a new produc-tion method. The presentation’s full title is: Standard Curing vs Continu-ous Curing: Advantages and Results of an Innovative Approach to the Curing Process.

Dennis Been, systems sales manager for Europe, the Middle East and Af-rica at Pyrotek in the Netherlands, will present a paper entitled “Enhanc-ing the Value of Lead Drosses and Wastes.” It will examine how Pyrotek can support lead-acid battery produc-ers to improve performance by en-hancing and recovering valuable lead out of lead skimmings/drosses.

Been has over 15 years’ experience in various areas of the aluminium, zinc and galvanizing industries. The co-author of the paper will be Peter Jetten, Pyrotek’s global product man-ager for waste management systems.

Been will give details on the short return on investment in Pyrotek pro-

cessing equipment that, he claims, can improve the fi nancial bottom line of a battery producer. Additionally, it will show how using the equipment can help producers reduce their waste footprint.

Max Mandt-Merck, business devel-opment manager at LAP, will present on laser-based measurement solutions designed to measure pasted plate thickness and lead strip thickness. His focus will be on the commercial aspects of implementing such a meas-urement.

“With increasing competition with-in the battery industry, our solution marks an important unique selling proposition for your process and it saves costs,” he says.

Expanders tooIan Klein, from Penox Group in Ger-many will present with Andrea Saletti from Midac Batteries in Italy. Penox has developed a range of expander mixes, which it has started to sell to the batteries industry. Initial results suggest the materials are perform-ing very well with charge acceptance signifi cantly improved (+25%) but a slight increase in the water consump-tion observed which is being worked on with improvements already seen.

“As complex applications like start/stop automobiles continue to increase demands on battery performance, it has become critical to understand how each component of the battery behaves with respect to the overall system” — John

Wertz, Hollingsworth & Vose

“With increasing competition within the battery industry, our solution marks an important unique selling proposition for your process and it saves costs” — Max Mandt-Merck,

LAP


SUPPLIERS’ FORUM

All results are verifi ed by Italian battery producer Midac Batteries and confi rmed by other customers, says Klein.

“The increase of charge accept-ance was achieved without using any ‘fancy’ carbon additives like graphite or activated carbon. During our short presentation we want to explain our point of view that is more related to the mechanisms of acid exchange within the plates and adjustment of pore sizes and control of crystal struc-tures for active materials during dis-charge operations,” he says.

Pasting papersSylvie Bayle, R&D manager in Ber-nard Dumas with responsibility for developing tomorrow’s AGMs and micro glass pasting papers for the battery industry, will present on the implications and benefi ts of using a pasting paper made of micro glass fi -bres to design a VRLA and/or an EFB.

She says recent product develop-ments will be presented and com-pared to other solutions and any bat-tery makers using a pasting paper in their plate making process will fi nd the talk of interest.

Kent Lancaster, vice president of sales for Oak Press Solutions, a sup-plier of battery grid punching sys-tems, will discuss some of the refi ne-ments the company has made to the OAK Punching Systems over the past year, which he says are designed to improve the quality of the grids it produces and simplify the operation of the equipment.

“Battery manufacturers are being challenged by the ever increasing de-mands on battery performance and need to improve production effi cien-cy in their facilities,” Lancaster says. “The battery grid punching system from Oak Press Solutions can help address the demands of the end cus-tomer and the needs of the manufac-turer.”

He says punched battery grids provide superior performance when compared to grids produced by oth-er technologies. “And the punching system from Oak not only produces very consistent grids, which increases overall plant effi ciencies, but it also produces grids at a very high produc-tion rate,” Lancaster says.

John Wertz, the global product development manager for Hollings-worth and Vose Battery Products in charge of separator design and de-velopment, will talk about work the company is doing developing a new

generation of measurement tech-niques and specifi cations that will help defi ne the way the AGM separa-tors perform.

“As complex applications like start/stop automobiles continue to increase demands on battery performance, it has become critical to understand how each component of the battery behaves with respect to the overall system,” says Wertz.

“At H&V, we are working to de-velop next generation measurement techniques and specifi cations which will help to defi ne the way the AGM separator performs in situ. Our over-arching goal is to help our customers improve the performance of their bat-teries to meet the demands of tomor-row’s applications.”

He adds that AGM separators serve as an active part of the battery sys-tem. “Choosing the right separator can positively infl uence battery per-formance characteristics such as ca-pacity and cycle life, as well as impact production rates and processes. H&V has developed testing and measure-ment techniques which will more ac-curately depict performance through-out the life of the battery system.”

Previously at H&V, Wertz has led advanced product development teams in battery separator, fuel carbon com-posites, liquid fi ltration and nanofi ber media. Before joining H&V 12 years ago, he spent 15 years in battery and electrochemical capacitor design and development with Johnson Controls, General Motors and Trojan Battery Company.

Carbon, carbonDario Cericola, an application scien-tist in the R&D Laboratory of Imerys Graphite and Carbon (formerly TIM-CAL Graphite and Carbon) dealing with various battery systems, will describe a number of products devel-oped by Imerys that can be used in lead acid batteries.

“Imerys Graphite & Carbon has a highly diversifi ed carbon portfolio for application in lead acid batteries that satisfy all manufacturer carbon requirements,” he says. “The TIM-REX CyPbrid grade, which is specifi -cally developed for application in ad-vanced lead acid batteries, is a hybrid carbon that combines key properties of graphite and carbon blacks.

“It also exhibits easy handling and processing and signifi cantly boosts the negative plate performance con-cerning charge acceptance and cycle life in HRPSOC operation.”

Abertax’s Mentzer, will present on the latest developments in battery monitoring devices

Cesare Catelli: ways to improve the curing process for lead-acid battery plates

Dennis Been, from Pyrotek, will present a paper entitled “Enhanc-ing the Value of Lead Drosses and Wastes.”

Pasting Pasting ► ► DividingDividing ► ► Flash Drying Flash Drying ► ► Stacking Stacking ► ► Curing Curing ► ► C.O.S. C.O.S. ► ► Assembly Assembly

MAC Engineering and Equipment Company, Inc. 2775 Meadowbrook Road, Benton Harbor, MI 49022 U.S.A.

[email protected]

www.mac-eng.com

Latin America Latin America (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) Asia Asia (Sorfin Yoshimura Tokyo, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Tokyo, Ltd.) Brasil Brasil (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) China China (Sorfin Yoshimura Qingdao, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Qingdao, Ltd.) Europe Europe (Sorfin Yoshimura Paris, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Paris, Ltd.) India India (Sorfin Yoshimura India, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura India, Ltd.) Thailand Thailand (Sorfin Yoshimura Thailand, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Thailand, Ltd.)

New York, USA:New York, USA: [email protected] [email protected] Tokyo, Japan:Tokyo, Japan: tokyo@[email protected] yoshimura.jp São Paulo, Brasil:São Paulo, Brasil: saopaulo@[email protected] yoshimura.br Qingdao, China:Qingdao, China: qingdao@[email protected] yoshimura.cn Paris, France:Paris, France: paris@[email protected] Pune, India:Pune, India: sales@[email protected] Bangkok, Thailand: sorfin@sorfinBangkok, Thailand: [email protected] yoshimura.co.th

ELBC Pre-conference Supplement FINAL Instalment!

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