Realisation of structural battery composite materials

This paper introduces the concept of structural battery composite materials and their possibledevices and the rationale for developing them. The paper presents an overview of the researchperformed in Sweden on a novel structural battery composite material. The research areas addressedinclude: carbon fibre electrodes, structural separators, multifunctional matrix materials, devicearchitectures and material functionalization. Material characterization, fabrication and validation arealso discussed. The paper focuses on a patented battery composite material technology. Here, carbonfibres are employed as combined negative battery electrodes and reinforcement, coated with a solidpolymer electrolyte working simultaneously as electrolyte and separator with ability to transfermechanical loads. The coated fibres are distributed in a conductive positive cathode material on analuminium electron collector film. Efficient Li-ion transport between the electrodes is achieved by thesolid polymer electrolyte coating being only a few hundred nanometres thick.Finally some outstanding scientific and engineering challenges are discussed. Such challenges,calling for further research are related to manufacture, development of new solid polymer electrolytesfor improved multifunctionality and the lack of material models