Lab

We have a well-equipped lab where we undertake a range of measurements on devices, such as long term degradation tests, thermal measurements, pulse tests, impedance spectroscopy, dynamic tests, OCV tests etc. We also regularly design and construct our own electronics and instrumentation, for example a novel calorimeter system. For this sort of work we use Altium for PCB design, and we program embedded systems in Matlab/Simulink and C/C++. One of our favourite embedded platforms is mbed.

These are examples of the equipment we have in our lab (this list is out of date and will be removed, therefore indicative only):

  • Biologic MPG205z 8 channel (5 A each) battery tester with EIS
    • Voltage up to 9 V, resolution 5 µV
    • Current from 10 µA to 5 A at a resolution of 760 pA
    • EIS separate on every channel from 10 µHz to 20 kHz
    • PRT temperature sensors on every channel
  • Biologic SP-150 potentiostat with 10 A booster and EIS
    • Current +/- 10 A
    • Voltage up to 15 V
    • EIS from 10 µHz to 1 MHz
    • 10 µA to 800 mA with 760 pA resolution in low current mode
  • Biologic HCP1005 100 A potentiostat including EIS
    • Current +/- 100 A, voltage up to 5 V
    • EIS from 10 µHz to 10 kHz
    • Booster can be disconnected for low current measurements
    • Separate PRT temperature sensors
  • Neware 8 channel battery tester
    • Voltage 10 mV to 5 V on each channel
    • Current 40 mA to 20 A on each channel
    • Operating modes: constant current, constant voltage, constant power, constant resistance (for discharge), pulse test
    • Temperature sensors on every channel
  • Binder MK53 thermal chamber
    • 53 litre capacity
    • Temperature range -40 ˚C to + 180 ˚C
  • Vötsch VT4002 thermal chamber
    • 16 litre capacity
    • Temperature range -40 ˚C to + 130 ˚C
  • Flir Thermacam A655sc thermal imaging camera
    • 640 x 480 Resolution
    • 7.5 to 14 µm spectral range
    • Full frame 16-bit data up to 50 fps
    • Up to 200 Hz with windowing
  • dSpace 20 Channel battery simulator and real time target
    • DS1006 Processor board (quad core AMD Opteron)
    • 5x EV1077 Battery cell voltage emulation boards
    • Channel voltage up to 6 V, current up to 1 A
    • Up to 4 channels may be paralleled for higher currents
  • Kikusui PBZ60-6.7 four quadrant load/PSU, x3
    • Voltage up to +/- 60 V
    • Current up to +/- 6.7 A per unit (up to 20 A in parallel)
    • Full 4Q operation
    • Built-in function generator up to 100 kHz
    • 3.5 µs Rise/fall times allowing high speed control
  • General purpose electrical build and test equipment
    • Weller solder stations
    • Agilent oscilloscopes including differential and current probes
    • EA and TTi Electronic loads and PSUs
    • National Instruments cDAQ data acquisition system
  • Pro-spot DPM-10K DC Battery tab welder
    • Electrode diameter: 3 mm
    • Electrode travel: 15 mm
    • Output power: 10 kVA