The IAM-AWP Calorimeter Center, led by Dr. Ziebert, was founded in 2011 and operates Europe's largest battery calorimeter laboratory. It offers

• 3D calvet calorimeters
• 6 accelerating rate calorimeters (ARCs)
• Gloveboxes for cell assembly and disassembly
• 11 temperature chambers for different temperature ranges and cell sizes
• Thermal camera
• Cycler with several hundred channels
• Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry systems

3D Calvet calorimeter

The C80 and MS80 calorimeters (Setaram Instrumentation) are equipped with high-precision 3D Calvet sensors that register thermal enthalpic events with maximum sensitivity and measurement accuracy. Sample and reference cells are completely surrounded by thermocouple columns for this purpose. In this way, the heat capacities as well as the reaction temperatures and enthalpies upon temperature increase can be determined for electrolyte and active materials. Furthermore, the heat generation of button cells and cylindrical cells up to format 21700 can be measured very precisely during charging and discharging.

Accelerating Rate Calorimeter

Depending on the shape and size of the selected cells or battery packs, different systems are used. The ES-ARC can be used for single smaller cells (button cells and 18650 cells), the EV-ARC is suitable for the investigation of larger lithium-ion cells (cylindrical and flat geometry) as well as battery packs. Heaters and thermocouples are located in the lid, bottom and side walls of the calorimeter chamber where the cell is inserted to set isoperibolic or quasiadiabatic environmental conditions. Isoperibolic measurements reflect ideal conditions of a cell without any obstruction of heat dissipation to the environment. Quasiadiabatic operating mode simulates a cell in a cell cluster. Here, the densely packed neighboring cells prevent heat dissipation to the environment, or at least greatly reduce it.