CERTH innovates together with Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH) and European Space Agency (ESA) for Li-ion batteries surviving cold environments, a technology enabling future space missions and beating the ‘cold start’ problem.
Dr. Maria Nestoridi, Energy Storage Engineer and Technical Officer of European Space Agency, explains how the ESA funded Technology Research Programme (TRP) Project “High Specific Energy Lithium Ion Cells for Space Exploration” broke the low temperature barrier for Li-ion cells and delivered a battery that can normally operate at -40oC, an achievement that led to a patent submission jointly among DUTH, CERTH and ESA.
CERTH and DUTH have joined forces with Airbus DS and CIDETEC and on January 10, 2017 have entered the negotiations phase with ESA for the follow-up project “Future Lithium-ion technology: Development of advanced materials & Lithium-ion cells of space batteries”, in response to ESA’s Invitation To Tender AO/1-8715/16/NL/HK/hh.
Work at CERTH is performed by the Laboratory of Process Systems Design and Implementation (PSDI), and the research team of Dr. Stella Balomenou and Professor Dimitrios Tsiplakides.