Battery and Sensor Test Center (BST)

The Battery and Sensor Test Center was founded in 2014 in cooperation with the Clausthal University of Technology with the objective to develop market-ready technology solutions together with our research and industry partners in an application-oriented and efficient manner within a secured environment. The scientific and technical focus is placed on battery safety and state characterization.

In recent years, lithium ion batteries in particular have become rapidly and widely used in a wide range of mobile electronics applications and in transportation due to their high energy density, cycle stability and cost reduction. For long-term acceptance with plausible economic and sustainable realization of new energy storage technologies, especially for decentralized applications in private and commercial buildings as well as large-scale storage systems and in mobility, very high requirements are placed on the reliability of monitoring and safety systems.

On the one hand, lithium ion batteries store large amounts of energy; on the other hand, even the smallest technical defect or improper handling can lead to an uncontrolled release of the electrochemically stored energy, resulting in a fire and/or explosion and usually are associated with a failure of the overall energy storage system.

Fraunhofer HHI uses the infrastructure and controlled environment of the BST to develop sensor systems for reliable characterization and early identification of safety-critical conditions. In addition, safety concepts such as energy-consuming separation layers, extinguishing systems, gas neutralization filters and emergency shutdown systems based on active and passive components are brought to application maturity in order to provide required safety features for critical infrastructures, 2nd life energy storage and prototype batteries.