Electric vehicle battery packs are currently assembled with permanent joints that cannot be undone without destroying the components. This project aims to develop a reversible adhesive connection that allows battery cells and busbars to be separated cleanly, repaired, and reassembled. Today, when a single battery cell fails, the entire pack is often scrapped because the welded or bonded joints cannot be taken apart. This wastes valuable materials and makes recycling difficult. The team at the University of Sheffield, Heriot-Watt University, and the University of the West of Scotland will combine surface engineering, materials science, and AI to design a connection that can be intentionally released on demand without damage. If successful, this would allow battery packs to be repaired rather than replaced, extending vehicle life and supporting a second-hand EV market. It would also improve recycling by enabling full recovery of critical raw materials, reducing the need for new mining. The same approach could apply to other electrical infrastructure where non-destructive disassembly would benefit maintenance and end-of-life recovery. The project builds on previous EPSRC-funded work to accelerate development of this reversible joining technology.
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Proposal context Ambitious net-zero targets and society's expectation for a continuous 'on-demand', clean, secure, and sustainable energy commodity necessitates a significant expansion in the UK's electrical infrastructure. The DfT's 2022 report "Taking Charge: the electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure strategy" and the APC's automotive battery end-of-life value chain roadmap, published in June 2023, highlight strategic economic benefits associated with this challenge. Regional and UK-wide prosperity, allied with extending battery life provides the support needed to grow a second hand EV market to allow vehicles to be more affordable, whilst simultaneously improving environmental stewardship through improved recycling and a reduction in demand for critical raw materials, further reducing energy usage. The challenge the project addresses and how it will be applied to this: Extending battery life through tactical replacement or repair of battery cells and / or modules provides a manifold of benefits and offers new market opportunities for the transportation sector. Presently, battery designs and those sub-assembly electrical connections between cells and busbars are created using fusion or solid-state bonded processes producing non-reversible joints; i.e., separation of joints is a destructive activity if they are to be replaced, repaired or recycled. Mechanical methods have been investigated and used for early designs, but these are vulnerable to 'efficiency drop-off' triggered by 'resistance ageing', resulting from thermal and corrosive activities between the connection interfaces and loosening of connections caused by random vibrations. The University of Sheffield, Heriot-Watt University and the University of the West of Scotland will develop a sustainable manufacturing process for battery applications, enabling assembly, non-destructive disassembly and reassembly between electrical connections to achieve full recovery of the cells and busbars. Our EPSRC funding request brings together expertise from across multifarious engineering disciplines: surface engineering and flow dynamics; materials science; joining; AI; and tooling design. We will utilise outputs from previous EPSRC funding projects; e.g., 'NASCENT' to accelerate capability to produce a reversible solution.
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