could plant is used to make this ultra thin strips of material under the watchful eye of chief engineer hoover who would. then this sheet is placed in a polymer pownce. the final step of the process involves adding a few drops of liquid electrolyte to fill the remaining space in the battery. straight. from the cells reading out. lithium ion batteries have a very simple structure a cathode positive electrode and an antidote or negative electrode. to prevent a short circuit the 2 electrodes are separated. when the battery is charging electrons flow from the positive side to the negative. the battery cell is enclosed in a polymer pound. the pouch is then filled with an electrolyte solution. as

the battery charges positive lithium ion move through the electrolyte solution to the negative side and stay in the energy graphite layer. this process continues until the layer is full. of electrons also travel to the other side via a separate external circuit. when the battery is being used the process is reversed. the end releases electrons through the external circuits and they flow to the cafe and this creates the electricity that allows the battery to power a device at the same time the positive lithium ion return to the cathode. lithium ion batteries have a number of advantages yes. they can power an electric car for several 100 kilometers. chart. quickly so you no longer have to leave them overnight. either

but they're also relatively inexpensive when you factor in the cost of operation and the resale value and they're also comparatively safe those are the main reasons that these batteries have become so popular and for. most inventor is certain that lithium ion technology will continue to lead the way for the next 5 to 10 years. a key component of these batteries is the catheter and. this is what it looks like under an electronic microscope the cathode consists of metal oxides. 80 percent nickel 3 percent manganese and 2 percent cobalt. about 70 percent of the world's cobalt comes from the democratic republic of the congo. 10 to 20 percent of congo's cobalt is mind at illegal sites like this one. it's hard and dangerous work

she. broke this often from china by the cobalt or. most of congo's cobalt is extracted at surface mines several of the country's largest cobalt mines are controlled by china. local residents don't benefit much from the sale of the cobalt that's mine near their homes. other valuable role materials are used in cathode production for example lithium makes up about 2 percent of the total. much of the world's lithium comes from south america. lithium salt is often found in underground reservoirs of brine the liquid is pumped to the surface and then stored in open basins where it evaporates. after with the material is sent to

a processing facility where the lithium is extracted. critics claim that this process can cause serious environmental problems including contamination of drinking water in parts of argentina bolivia and chile. the 1st lithium ion batteries contained a cafe that was made exclusively of cobalt. later versions replaced much of the cobalt with other materials including nickel and manganese the cobalt content has now been cut to about 10 percent. the battery industry has cut down on the use of expensive and environmentally harmful materials as part of the effort to reduce the carbon footprint of its products. the steam on the heart of card.

for years asian manufacturers didn't pay a lot of attention to sustainability. yes that's changing because their customers. manufacturers in germany demanded the for long and so the asian companies have had to make adjustments on the other hand we've focused on sustainable technology from the very start and that gives us a big advantage as a. the recycling of battery component parts has become more widespread in germany this startup facility is located in the state of lower saxony. we also company c.e.o. christiane hunnish where the recycled batteries are as good as the originals. for cell phones being usually are but we did have a battery die once and a baby monitor. the company has developed a highly sustainable method for recycling the lithium ion batteries.

you read about remember this is where we extract the electricity from the battery we then feed that electricity into the facilities grid. right. once the battery has been fully discharged it'll be taken upon us. e.u. regulations say that at least 50 percent of the batteries contents must be recycled most companies meet this targets by including casings and cables but critics say that's cheating. it's often difficult to get to the battery cell itself that will have to change in future designs. once the cells

are removed the sent off to be shredded. this process takes place in an atmosphere of nitrogen instead of oxygen to reduce the risk of combustion. here we see the graphite from the batteries. and the electrolytes and you. the shredder is about the size of a shipping container batteries contain has a disputed aerials and they're transported to the recycling center in los quantities but the real materials that come out of the shredding process all say. christiane harnish plans to build 17 of these machines in facilities throughout europe. on just hearts this will pay off in the long run because it's a sustainable way to dispose of old batteries on. the left of

a role materials are then sent to a sourcing plant christan hunnish plans to set up 6 of these facilities in europe. given the watchguard you know this is where we sort out the heavier materials from those we use a magnet and an electro magnet to separate the aluminum and steel component up or down together for the large to target the lighter components are processed so that we can 5 remove materials like lithium the also ball nickel manganese and graphite because god or. those components end up in a bag like this some recycling companies incinerate this material to extract the most holds the christian hunnish plans to take a different approach social construct and we'd like to be able to turn it into material that can be used to manufacture new batteries that'll be much harder hairshirt. a number of chemical processes can extract the role materials used in

the theme ion batteries. for example inorganic acids are used to isolate lithium graphite and other recyclable materials. some tests have reported a recovery rate of more than 90 percent. stand it recovery process is achieve a race of only about 25 percent. depending on the type of battery so. until the chemical recovery process is perfected most of the materials that can't be recycled will simply be incinerated. recycling can help extend the life of the battery but what if scientists were able to develop a battery that lasts much longer. than. if you drive an electric car you're aware of the battery limitations. of the indicator is near 0

you hope that you can squeeze just a few more kilometers out of it. and when it. did is a professor at the technical university and he's an expert on renewable energy systems and with his team is working on a project that analyzes why some batteries last longer than others. how those who knew about the lever for example both. take a look at all the various factors that can influence battery life why do batteries age differently because the way i drive my car or ride my bike the battery life isn't that the boat does temperature play a role it's much does it take a look at these battery cells and this one of them is quite old and the other is fairly new. we're trying to figure out how batteries age and what we can do to make them last longer than we did with the. result and his experts have developed

a kind of stress test that measures all aspects of the batteries performance. but you get paid from here could get people feel enough that we use this equipment to create a profile of individual batteries for example how they're charged fast or slow their overall performance how a car battery responds to acceleration we can simulate all of these factors right here. and we also test the batteries in this climate controlled chamber. temperature is a key factor an increase of 10 degrees cuts battery life by half. we've speeded up the process because a good battery can last 1015 or even 20 years and we don't have that kind of time of the few slowing that. afterwards they did to chile analyze the results of the stress tests. you could maybe it's now

we'll look at the batteries contacts. of the slides our 2 batteries performed quite differently the image on the screen shows battery number one the weaker of the 2 i and we can definitely see some distortion valves. this is the size these are places where damage can occur. and also short circuits. so be overplayed but in fact i thought so this is what a new battery looks like hardly any distortion and that's how it's supposed to lose i think the show sign. so what cools those distortions in the 1st batch a. cell and his team will carry out a detailed examination. they cut open the battery so that they can study the cathode and the end of. a round cell like this one is actually nothing more than a thin flat cell that's been rolled up.

a research assistant take samples from the batteries defective cool and from the exterior which is still in touch. from these samples they build small test batteries called button cells that include a fresh supply of lithium. i think or me here going there yes you can see on the graph that there was a loss of lithium. and once we added a new supply of lithium to the body cell that i that area showed up as almost completely whole it's so the. cathode in this case is still intact. the lithium was probably lost on the an outside and we can apply this knowledge to the design of future cells and to get so perhaps we can add more lithium to them via the. power. this kind of data will be critical to the future success of battery cell production

in germany. and this will help consume escape more out of the batteries that power at their favorite devices. did offer some advice on how to use batteries properly. lithium ion batteries age the vast distances when they're fully charged. so you should limit the charging time as much as possible. and you should never charge the batteries in cold temperatures for example don't charge your phone while you're walking around outside in winter the battery will get cold but don't start charging it until you get home so it can warm up in less than before. and you should recharge the battery as often as possible. not fully but often. so don't run the battery on your phone down to 004 you recharge it. so. it's like

pulling on a rubber band you know if you pull just a little bit it'll last for a long time but if you pull that rubber band hard all the time it's eventually going to break. loose let's do this and avoid high temperatures to a 10 degree increase it will cut battery life in half. this is germany's 1st large scale battery production factory the via factory. but everyone use it for all kinds of things. you have to get used to charging the. just like you charge a watch wormhole to talk he also knows that once you do that it'll be fine. hunk luma and thomas hoffman are in charge of the v.w. cake a factory which is located near the city of studs in the state of north rhine-westphalia . preliminary operations began in 2019. the

factory is a joint venture between v.w. and the swedish battery manufacturing north volt. it also is the 1st step in production you this is where we mix the paste and old material on one side cathode on the other. the raw materials for the paste all supplied by the chemical industry and a lot of research has gone into its composition. materials make up 80 percent of the total production costs. battery many factories in china are way ahead of their german counterparts but with factories like this one v.w. hopes to catch up both in terms of materials and manufacturing technology. we run a lot of tests to help achieve optimum of foam and super smart or not yet in this

series production plays so we want to me expand our knowledge base to create the best possible condition based on what we don't know but. some are good some of it's always good to learn development basics 1st and then move on to the big investments. the cells that are made today by the giga factories were developed somewhere else in a small scale factory and we plan to do that development right here you know that's mostly up to the film. as production ramps up the factory is expected to manufacture a 60. hours worth of batteries by the end of 2023. but that's not nearly enough to power the new v.w. electric cars that will be ready by then. so for the time being german automakers will have to rely on batteries that are made in asia but that will change in the years to come. a pilot program here has been

producing lithium ion battery cells since early 2019. with some of. this will remain the dominant technology over the medium term recovery. but new types of battery cells are on the way scientists at the pollen hoover institute for material and clean technology and dressed and are at the forefront of this research. was to get off if you've got a ticket on your phone and the battery runs out non-stock. that's why usually i printed out your test to be on the sign. that says it's going all the lithium batteries are all the way of the future. stephan casket and his team are developing lightweight batteries that will work well with drones. lithium self of batteries have 2 big advantages over lithium

ion cells in the cathode layers don't use expensive and environmentally dangerous materials like nickel and cobalt. and they have a high energy density which means that they're more powerful. and the structure of a lithium sulfur battery is quite different. the cathode is made of carbon and sulphur the anode contains lithium. when the batteries being used electrons split off from the entered and moved to the cafe. the lithium ion this move over there is well they react with the sofa to make lithium cell phone this continues until the battery is empty. when the battery is charging the sulfide dissolves and the process runs and with us.

the main advantage of these kinds of batteries is that the materials in the cathode also lightweight. carbon and sulphur. the carbon has to have a low density and it has to be. so it can absorb the sulfur. so it is a common element so it's inexpensive. fish to go see the one element to the key material in this battery. in the. states let's take a closer look. duffy metallic lithium is highly reactive that's why we keep it isolated in this chamber this box or. the chamber is filled with argon gas which doesn't react with the lithium. exclaimed lithium is extremely soft and can break into crumbs as you can see here

with us and i meant obviously it's also extremely reactive so the electrolyte decomposes quickly i mean so that's. the fossil we're trying to find a lecture like material that's more durable so the battery can run more cycles. today's lithium self is sells off the high performance but they wear out quickly. but never so often highly like some call the lithium and the holy grail of electrochemistry. conditions if you've been working on lithium sulfur batteries or some time i was convinced that would have one on the market yes. defo no if a team has been working on this project for 10 years but commercial production still see in some way off. in any case these lightweight batteries are now being tested for use with drug.

scientists also trying to make lithium cell food that's really safe and. let himself the cells are generally safe but accidents do happen that's why scientists are working to develop solid state batteries. does this and cut old montreal in the 1st couple elect recap 3rd material moves through the solid state of electoral light and then attaches itself quite active on. to the current collector. in a fix you can see that we're using a flexible cathode for this process. it's not brittle and all it's wood is highly efficient solid state electrolytes are still in the development stage but they have one take advantage over liquid electrolytes they can't catch fire. by

definition there are no flammable liquids in a solid state electrolytes. some of these are made of ceramic lost materials which is porous enough to allow the migration of the lithium audience. solid state batteries could eventually play a major role in the production of electric vehicles. but what should we do with batteries that have outlived their usefulness one option is recycling as here in amsterdam. islam says if. you're standing there in the cold trying to get your phone to open the door of your car to go but you can't because the batteries are dead it's to call the anybody so you have to hold the phone under your arm until it warms up. the. old combat trees are a key part of the energy storage system at the stadium home to the i.x.

amsterdam football club. this is a possibility has a backup power system that's run by $148.00 b. it'll batter us. by the electricity the lights that you see here. like b l e d's and the scoreboard and father brother. if the emergency system kicks in the only thing that people will notice is a brief flicker and the lights. it's a big improvement over the stadiums old diesel powered generators. solar panels on the stadium roof and wind power from local installations add to the electricity mix. the palace storage units are located in the basement. the batteries have only about 70 percent of their storage capacity left but that's

good enough for this project he doesn't but very likely some of these batteries have 150000 kilometers on that we took them out of the vehicles tested them and then put them in these cabinets the room temperature is a comfortable $25.00 degrees. we expect that they'll provide electricity for the stadium and the regional power grid for the next 10 years and that's about again. the electricity that's generated must match the consumption exactly the batteries serve as buffett is. about giving us or you can see here that we charge the batteries before yesterday's champions league match to provide a backup power supply after the game we discharge the batteries ran them down to 50 percent capacity right now they're supplying electricity for a dutch grid operators at the time that. mark has spent

tries to get the most out of his past trace but he doesn't want to overwork that. software because. we've developed software that compares the age of the battery and the amount of money that it can earn by generating electricity. at c. in con will keep charging and discharging a battery as long as it continues to produce revenue. to get the same these additions but when it can no longer do that will replace it was a good fit in. it would have to switch to. the batteries of electric cars in the stadium parking lot can also contribute power to the great. it's why those intellect all those pockets and you could have 2000 electric cars connected to the system. and they'll not only charge but also discharge electricity into the stadium grid. used by directional charging stations. so the vehicle not only takes

in electricity when it's charging but it also sends power back into the grid when it's discharging but when the stomach starts i'm asked by for. the success of europe's energy transition will depend to a large extent on how well we are able to exploit the storage potential of electric vehicles. because out also the big challenge right now is not the technology. and it's getting the politicians to create conditions that will allow germany to continue to lead the world in the production of renewable energy and in the manufacture of automobiles with $6.50 puts and we have to bring these 2 sectors together. and we need a regulatory framework that will allow us to do that. for the regulatory shuffle for example the government taxes both the charging and discharging of an electric

car battery but not a stationary battery or something wrong it's little things like that. we have to do better we have to be more innovative that's and we have to be bolder than the sweet spot on. blood stains these exhibits. looted art from the german colonial era at the new home balls farm in berlin. the stolen art is casting a shadow over germany's largest cultural project even before it has fully opened.

our 20. 30 minutes on t w. we have an important news. smoking news healthy post decides are good for the being nice or global warming doesn't exist. you don't believe those well not yet. you have read my mind. the industry is controlling your thoughts here are 10 shilling seeking t.v. out scientists it's not easy to spot. the great books of the 20th century. present day hoaxes. and who's behind the.

manufacturing ignorance starts may 3rd on d w. as the. patients. in the. program. people.