Energy storage battery frame structure

Utilizing structural batteries in an electric vehicle offers a significant advantage of enhancing energy storage performance at cell- or system-level. If the structural battery serves as the vehicle's structure, the overall weight of the system decreases, resulting in improved energy storage performance (Figure 1B).

This type of batteries is commonly referred to as “structural batteries”. Two general methods have been explored to develop structural batteries: (1) integrating batteries with light and strong external reinforcements, and (2) introducing multifunctional materials as battery components to make energy storage devices themselves structurally robust.

These structural batteries, functioning as rechargeable batteries, adhere to the same electrochemical behavior seen in commonly used lithium-ion batteries. Their energy storage relies on the reversible oxidation–reduction reactions of lithium and the lithium-ion couple (Li/Li +) to store energy.

Structural energy storage devices function as both a structural component and an energy storage device simultaneously. Therefore, a system (e.g. a vehicle) with such multifunctional devices can have better mass efficiency and longer operating time.

However, the potential gain in energy density of externally reinforced structural batteries is limited by the additional mass of reinforcement and its mechanical properties, whereas integrated multifunctional structural components inside the battery ideally do not add extra weight to it.

Though not systematically summarized here, those works can be of great benefit to the field of structural energy storage to better understand how a component or a device responds to a certain stimulation such as current or mechanical impact, and thus to better design devices with higher performance and safety.