Speaker presentation: 

Who are you and what is your personal contribution in the rechargeable (zinc) world?

Doctor in materials science and solid chemistry, I have over 20 years of experience in electrochemical storage at Sunergy. From 1998 to 2001, I was technical manager in the BRITE Euram project NEARBY for the development of a nickel electrode for NiMH batteries. From 2002 to 2018, as a research engineer, I developed a NiZn technology capable of doing 2000 cycles on 100% DoD at C rate. In the beginning of 2017, this technology has begun to be transferred from Sunergy to Chaowei Power Co.,LTD.

Over the same period, I participated in various ANR (Research National French Agency) projects:

• The ANZAS project for the development of a stationary NiZn battery;

• The AZTEQUE project for the development of a Zinc-Air battery, a project that knows a continuity with the Zinium start-up of EDF,

• The ROBOBAT project in collaboration with CEA-Liten, which for the first time has developed a NiZn 12V – 7Ah bipolar battery able to supply a robot with a performance comparable to the project's competing Li-ion technologies.

Why participating to R-Zinc? What do you think of the concept?

We participate to promote the breakthrough achieved by Sunergy and developed by Chaowei Power Co.,LTD which provides a viable and safe alternative to address our worldwide need in energy transition. That is true that there is no ideal battery solution for all applications. Older systems such as lead-acid or NiCd are losing interest in the market, because of their toxicity and other drawbacks. Li-ion, being a good choice for portable devices and various mobility applications, is less adapted to stationary domain. Moreover, use of alternative battery solutions would relieve stress on the supply of lithium. Rechargeable batteries based on zinc anode would play a more important role in a near future. NiZn battery offers a very good compromise in terms of performance (comparable to industrial lithium ion batteries), cost (between lead-acid and nickel-cadmium), safety and environmental impact. Thus, nickel-zinc has a favourable position to compete with nickel-cadmium and lead-acid, which are the important technologies for stationary energy storage and off-road traction; and with lithium-ion batteries being so far dedicated to high demanding mobile applications, in which price is not always a crippling issue. The new Rechargeable Nickel Zinc Battery technology performed by Sunergy and developed by Chaowei Power Co., LTD can be considered as a replacement for NiCd battery with extra advantages: more performant, more environmentally friendly, cleaner, safer and cheaper. The result of the innovative NiZn battery is likely to change the hierarchy among the main battery systems, namely lithium-ion, lead-acid, NiCd and NiMH, producing a remarkable impact in this area.