How can artificial intelligence bring us closer to a more efficient, more easily recycled and better batteries?
Recharge Industries has just announced it will build a $300 million lithium ion battery “gigafactory” in Geelong, Victoria, targeting 2 GWh of production a year in 2024 and 6 GWh by 2026.
Lithium ion batteries are in growing demand worldwide with the expected skyrocketing introduction of electric vehicles.
But beyond this news, Recharge Industries will also partner with Deakin University’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute (A2I2) in Geelong to use artificial intelligence to build a better battery.
The idea of using AI to improve batteries is not new, but A2I2 has created an operating system specifically designed for the lithium ion battery project, to speed up the design process.
Professor Kon Mouzakis, Co-Director of the institute, explains the operating system “goes down into finite molecules to look at how they interact”.
Using machine learning created by the Institute to mimic human learning and behaviour, “Molecule OS” looks at the whole battery-making process from sourcing materials to production, and continues to work while the battery is in use.
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“That really then allows us to have a better understanding and create a better outcome in terms of material that’s used, how much is being thrown out because of wastage or impurities or whatever,” Mouzakis says.
The goal is a better understanding of how to make “better, cleaner, waste-conscious batteries that can be reused to contribute to the circular economy”.
The joint project is another step in improving the practicality of recycling lithium ion battery elements and safer disposal.
“By bringing these different technologies together,” A2I2 Co-Director Professor Svetha Venkatesh says, “you can find a solution that solves a pretty difficult problem that we have in society today.
“AI can impact the most foundational problems in [the] industry.’
Venkathesh says AI could discover “new and novel materials” and help scientists discover new alloys.
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