Lithium-ion batteries play a key role in electric mobility and stationary energy storage. As their use continues to expand, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how they respond to different temperatures, charging and discharging conditions, operating profiles, and stages of ageing. The research collaboration between ABB Corporate Research Center in Dättwil and Empa, the materials science institute of the ETH domain in Dübendorf, focuses on exactly this challenge in several ETH Zurich and EPFL student projects: developing a deeper understanding of lithium-ion battery behaviour and how it can be predicted in real-world applications.
From the laboratory to real-world applications
Batteries are complex systems. Their performance changes depending on how they are operated today, but also on their previous use and how they have aged. Understanding these interactions requires a combination of detailed experiments, scientific analysis, and practical application knowledge.
Empa contributes expertise in battery research and characterisation, investigating how cells respond to different operating conditions and how their behaviour evolves over time. ABB brings the perspective of industrial applications, where batteries need to perform reliably as part of electric buses and trains or in stationary energy-storage systems and larger electrical networks. By combining these perspectives, the collaboration aims to connect what happens inside the battery cell with what engineers need to know at system level.
Learning how batteries change
A key question is not simply how much energy a battery can store, but how its performance changes throughout its lifetime. Temperature, charging rates, depth of discharge and operating patterns can all influence battery ageing. Better understanding these effects can help determine how batteries should be operated to make the best use of their capabilities while maintaining performance and lifetime. Models play an important role in this process. By combining experimental measurements with an understanding of the underlying physical processes, researchers and engineers at ABB and Empa develop tools to describe and predict battery behaviour under conditions that cannot always be tested directly. The resulting knowledge can support applications ranging from electric mobility to stationary storage and help make better decisions about battery operation, sizing and lifetime.
A collaboration that continues beyond research
The connection between ABB and Empa extends beyond individual research projects. Several former Empa students and researchers have gone on to join ABB’s teams, creating a lasting exchange of knowledge and expertise between scientific research and industrial application. This close relationship illustrates the value of collaboration across disciplines: understanding batteries requires both insight into the complex processes within the cell and an understanding of how that cell ultimately needs to perform in the real world.
Key Question:
How can a deeper understanding of battery behaviour help us use lithium-ion batteries more reliably, efficiently and sustainably across mobility and energy storage?
