Europe must re-emerge as a global leader in battery technology by accelerating the development of underlying essential technologies and allowing a European battery cell manufacturing industry. As required in the EU Green Deal, rechargeable batteries with high round-trip efficiency are a vital technology that permits energy storage for numerous applications. The lithium-ion chemistries now dominate the market for rechargeable batteries. However, these are near the end of their improvement limits. In this direction, the advantage of the high energy density of Li-S batteries is especially significant for novel applications, e.g., where weight is a crucial parameter. The project aims to develop and implement self-healing concepts and materials in the critical battery components used in conventional Li-S batteries and extrapolate the ideas to develop a new class of self-healing structural batteries based on Li-S by investigating at the cell & component level. It will be built a toolbox of self-healing materials, sensors, and a customized Battery Management System to maximize the performance of the produced Li-S battery in terms of Quality, Reliability, and lifetime and to avoid or repair occurring damages; The BMS's goal is to govern the flow of energy to and from the battery system, monitoring sensor data with computational methods to identify events indicating degradation, as well as initiate self-healing actions. The resulting solution will revamp the European sector of rechargeable batteries with high round-trip efficiency energy storage for numerous applications, as specified in the EU Green Deal, consequently promoting innovative ideas needed to develop future sustainable batteries which demand fewer resources and create the groundwork for EU competitiveness. The project will be aligned with the Battery2030+ large-scale initiative within their "Integration of smart functionalities" theme, which supports sensing and self-healing.

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is not just an annoyance. With increasing numbers of safety-critical devices communicating wirelessly, ensuring that equipment functions correctly is an ever-increasing concern. Nowhere is this more true than hospital environments. Europe is a leader in many areas of medical technology, with companies like Philips at the forefront of research. However, with highly complex interactions between devices becoming the norm, guaranteeing safety requires that we start to assess new equipment using a risk-based approach rather than the conventional rules-based approach, a method that is increasing inappropriate for harsh EMI environments. The ETERNITY ETN will train 14 ESRs through a combination of research, doctoral schools, network-wide events and secondments at the Participants, which include 7 Beneficiaries (4 academic and 3 from industry) and 5 Partner Organisations from across Europe. In combination, these Participants can offer the ESRs research training that is international

IntroductionThere were two significant changes during the project implementation:1. The project was originally not selected for support and put on the “waitlist”. Later it was accepted, but with a significantly reduced budget. For this reason, there was also a significant reduction of the outputs. Detailed description of the changes can be found in the appendix “MoVET_Změny_2017.pdf”. Changes made to the number of outputs are clearly summarized in a table contained in the appendix “Appendix 4 - Changes in partial outputs and activities.pdf”. With respect to the reduced budget and in accord with these amending documents, a contract was concluded with the grant provider.2. During the coronavirus crisis, activities related to students' trips abroad could not be performed, nor was it possible to hold the Final Meeting in person. Both types of activities were carried out in an alternative way. The cancellation of the original activities and setting of new (alternative) ones also induced a significant increase in workload.Context/background of the projectThe pre-project analysis revealed that professional education in technical areas:a) Did not satisfactorily reflect real needs of the industry,b) Did not have satisfactory contacts with the industry,c) Did not satisfactorily react to the recent development in science and technology by inclusion of modern topics in the education,d) Did not satisfactorily motivate the students,e) Did not have satisfactory international collaboration. The project goal was to reduce the above-listed constraints of professional education by developing a large number of results and their large-scale pitot testing.ObjectivesThe fundamental aim of the project was to increase the quality of professional education at secondary schools, to establish its closer links with the industry and to increase the interest and motivation of students at secondary professional schools to study well.Number and type/profile of participantsThe participants (target groups) were students and teachers from secondary professional schools focusing on technical subjects. Over 1700 students and 55 teachers took part in the conducted educational activities. 61 students participated in the national internships; 39 students participated in the international ones (out of which, 8 in the only physical mobility and 31 in the virtual ones). Finally, 24 students (8 from each partner country) students took part in the international student teams competition. The total number of students involved in project activities significantly exceeded our commitment stipulated in the project application.Description of activities and resultsA detailed description of the activities can be found in the relevant sections of this Final Report. Just a summarizing information is provided here:1. Sets of different types of electronic learning objects (in four languages)2. ECVET learning units3. Pedagogical materials for teachers4. Large-scale pilot run for students5. Pilot run for teachers6. Series of internships in industrial companies7. Motivating competition of international student teams8. Further education of teachers from secondary schools (specialized lectures) 9. Extensive dissemination events (special workshops, publishing activities)10. Specialized learning environment and supporting software11. Methodologies and strategiesLonger-term benefits and impactThe developed educational materials are part of the learning portal (http://techpedia.eu), which is publicly accessible and administered by the project coordinator. Thanks to the fact that the portal also contains the results of other projects, it is a relatively wide library of educational resources (offering over 140 packages of materials), which is often used not only by the primary target groups, but also by other academic or professional public.After the project conclusion, ECVET units and a number of methodologies and strategies will also remain available to the public. The long-term benefit for members of the project consortium is the newly acquired know-how.

The transport sector represents around 25% of all EU CO2 emissions: to face this challenge, the NEXTBAT consortium, involving 12 partners from 6 different EU countries and 1 Associated Partner from Switzerland, will provide a new framework for standardization of the next generation battery system design that will contribute to speed up a safe and sustainable electrification of transport and mobile applications in the EU, thereby also contributing to meet the EU CO2 reduction target and to reach a climate neutral economy by 2050. NEXBAT will significantly contribute to decrease the carbon footprint of the innovative battery system by decreasing production costs thanks to the high recyclability capacity of both hardware and cells components introduced along the production chain (100% w/w for hardware, 50-80% for cells depending on technology). The experience and expertise of renowned research centres and SMEs will allow the development of innovative safe-by-design battery systems with increased performances, recyclability and interoperability that will reach TRL5 by the end of the project. The electrification of transport and mobile applications requires high-performance and safe battery system. Thanks to the new technologies developed within the NEXTBAT framework, the battery system performances will be enhanced (energy/power density increase by 30 -50%) with decreasing battery weight by 25% using a newly developed lightweight material. Battery management systems will be incorporated at the cell and system unit allowing to increase battery lifetime by 20% at a SoH of 80% at cell level with innovative electronic sensing/actuating systems. Two interoperable prototypes will be manufactured, and safety guidelines and methodologies will be established as a result of safety testing campaigns performed by certified laboratories and the end-users, whereas dismantling and reuse of BMS parts will be assessed along with life cycle analysis.