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The Joule, Africa's first battery electric vehicle from Optimal Energy, is confirmed as a sponsor of the International Battery Association (IBA) 2011 meeting in Cape Town. |
The International Battery Association (IBA) meeting, arranged by the CSIR in association with the IBA, will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from 12 to 15 April 2011. This international meeting is a high profile annual event on the agenda of the battery research and development community.
The IBA's mission is to advance the science and engineering of batteries and battery materials and to provide the latest information to its members and the international community. One of the major strengths of the association is that its meetings have attracted delegates from the more technologically advanced countries as well as from developing nations.
According to the CSIR's Dr Mkhulu Mathe, who also chairs the IBA 2011 Organising Committee for this SA meeting, many of the major names in international battery research have already confirmed their participation as plenary or keynote speakers. "These include, among others, Stan Whittingham from the State University of New York; Khalil Amine and Mike Thackeray both from Argonne National Laboratory; Robert Kostecki of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Dominique Guyomard from CNRS in France; Masaharu Hatano from Nissan Motor Co; Shih-Chieh Liao from ITRI, Taiwan; and Chisu Kim from Energy Innovation Group in Korea," says Mathe.
The meeting has as its partner the Joule, Africa's first battery electric vehicle from Optimal Energy. "With lithium batteries for transportation applications being one of the major discussion topics of the meeting, the Joule as a partner makes perfect sense," says Mathe. Other topics include energy conversion and storage in batteries; battery electrode and electrolyte materials; battery safety and materials resources; fuel cells and ultra capacitors; power generation concepts based on aqueous and non-aqueous systems; and solid-electrolyte interfaces (SEI) and inter-phases.
Mathe says that the meeting promises to stir up good debate while providing thought leadership on each of the abovementioned topics. "This is also an excellent opportunity to get up to speed with the latest techniques and research being done at the top organisations in the world and a chance to network and explore collaboration opportunities," he adds.
The CSIR recently set up a Battery Research Centre that specifically focuses on battery and fuel cell research and development for automotive applications.
View more information about the meeting.
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