The Energy Engineering Special Seminar

Kevin Kimura

Ph.D. Candidate and NSF Fellow
Hanrath Group, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell University

Bosch Battery Research Internship Experience: Predicting Ni-rich NCA Cathode Charge/Discharge Curves

The goal of this talk will be to share my experiences as a research intern at the Bosch Research Center in Sunnyvale, CA and present a part of the research that came out of my time there. The hope is this talk will help to inform other graduate students about the exciting opportunities available outside of Cornell.

At Bosch I took part in developing a physics-based Advanced Battery Management System (ABMS) for Li-ion batteries in electric vehicles. A crucial input into the ABMS is the open circuit potential (OCV) curves for the cathode and anode of the battery. In investigating various cathode materials, we developed a simple method to accurately predict the OCV curve for varying compositions of LiNi_0.8+xCo_0.15-xAl_0.05O₂ (used in Tesla cars). This is especially relevant to industry as the current trend for Li-ion cathodes is to decrease Co while increasing Ni content. Our findings allow for the prediction of OCP curves for not-yet-synthesized materials.