The suite runs cell and small-stack testing for batteries and electrolysers: cycling, degradation, impedance and the abuse testing that establishes what happens when something goes wrong.
The distinguishing practice is duty-cycle realism. Most lifetime data is generated against convenient standard profiles, and most real assets do something quite different — including sitting idle for weeks, which turns out to matter. The suite builds test regimes from measured site data where a partner can supply it, and the resulting lifetime projections are frequently less cheerful and considerably more useful.
Safety and abuse testing is available and is treated as a design input rather than a box to tick at the end. Thermal runaway behaviour, gas evolution and the response to an unplanned shutdown are all better understood before a system is installed on somebody's site.
Reports state what was measured, against what reference, and what the data does not support. Partners seeking a favourable summary are advised in advance that they will not receive one.
Specification
- Multi-channel cell cycling with programmable duty profiles
- Environmental chambers for temperature-controlled cycling
- Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
- Small-stack electrolyser test capability with gas handling
- Abuse and thermal runaway testing in a contained facility
- Post-mortem teardown and materials analysis
What it is the right answer to
Jobs this facility genuinely suits.
- Degradation and lifetime assessment against a measured duty cycle
- Comparative assessment of cell chemistries for a specific application
- Electrolyser stack performance and degradation testing
- Safety and abuse characterisation ahead of system deployment
- Post-mortem analysis of cells that failed earlier than projected
What to bring
Turning up without these costs facility hours rather than bench hours.
- Cells or stacks with documented construction and provenance
- Measured duty-cycle data from the intended application, if it exists
- The lifetime or performance claim the campaign is meant to test
- Agreement on who receives the results, including unwelcome ones
What you leave with
- Full cycling data with capacity and impedance evolution over life
- Degradation rate projections with stated assumptions
- Safety characterisation records where abuse testing is included
- Teardown analysis identifying the dominant degradation mechanism
Limitations
Worth knowing before you write the proposal.
- Accelerated ageing rests on assumptions that must be stated and are sometimes wrong
- Cell-level results do not straightforwardly predict pack or system behaviour
- A twelve-month duty cycle cannot be honestly compressed into six weeks