Join Cleantron at the “5th Annual Electrification & Battery Development for Non-Road Applications Conference” on January 13, 2022. At this online conference, Cleantron will present the latest developments in the area of advanced battery modularity for 48V & High Voltage systems. For more information see: https://tbmgroup.eu/product/5th-annual-electrification-battery-development-for-non-road-applications/
In the European ALBATROSS project, Cleantron leads the Battery Module Design and will be Manufacturing the Battery Modules. Objectives of this cutting edge project are a 20% weight reduction to 222 kg. and a thermal management design achieving a 25% shorter battery recharging time. The battery will have an extended useful lifetime to at least 300.000 km. and an improved Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of 20%. Finally, innovative sensors and an advanced BMS will be combined with cloud-based AI techniques to come to a much greater understanding of pack sensorisation and thermal management. Above mentioned values are to be benchmarked against current EV’s.
For more info: https://albatross-h2020.eu/
Upcoming Engineers, looking for a learning opportunity in a professional innovative R&D environment, are welcome and encouraged to apply for a traineeship.
This can concern bachelor & master students in the field of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, information technology, industrial/UX design, robotics, production technology, machine vision, machine learning, etc. The following exciting Trainee Projects are on-hand:
For more info see: https://www.cleantron.nl/company/
We do encourage trainees to apply for a traineeship directly.
Requests via a recruitment agency or such, are not taken into consideration.
If you would like to apply for a traineeship at Cleantron, please send your CV and motivation letter to maarten.kelder@cleantron.nl
Cleantron will be presenting groundbreaking innovations at ACI’s European Electric Vehicle Batteries Summit. Discover the future of modular battery systems with us.
The upcoming edition of ACI’s European Electric Vehicle Batteries Summit will take place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, bringing together key players from across the electric mobility and energy storage landscape. This two-day event is a unique opportunity for professionals in the automotive industry, electric vehicle (EV) production, battery development, and energy policy to engage in high-level discussions and knowledge exchange.
Participants will include leading automotive manufacturers, battery experts, research institutions, NGOs, and regulatory authorities, all contributing their perspectives on the latest technological advancements and trends in the EV battery ecosystem. The summit serves as a collaborative platform to explore solutions that drive the future of sustainable mobility.
Cleantron is proud to participate in this prestigious event. We will present our latest innovations in battery modularity and intelligent usage concepts, showcasing how Cleantron’s flexible battery systems support a broad range of applications in next-generation mobility. These developments emphasize Cleantron’s continued commitment to performance, sustainability, and smart energy design.
For more information about the event and registration details, visit the official event website:
👉 ACI European Electric Vehicle Batteries Summit
We look forward to meeting you in Rotterdam and sharing our vision for the future of battery technology.
We believe that innovation isn’t innovation until it delivers value. That’s why we focus on bringing advanced battery technology to life — with quality, purpose, and customer impact at the core.
Cleantron believes that innovation only gains value when it is produced, implemented, and delivers tangible results. Ideas alone are not enough — true innovation lies in execution. That’s why we focus not only on developing cutting-edge battery technology, but also on delivering high-quality solutions that serve real customer needs.
At Cleantron, we understand that the real story is in product quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction. Each battery we produce is the result of rigorous design, engineering, and testing — all with the goal of supporting next-generation mobility and energy solutions. From swappable lithium-ion battery modules to smart battery systems with integrated monitoring, our technology drives value across diverse industries.
We believe these achievements are worth sharing. There are countless stories within Cleantron: about innovation, about challenges solved, and about partnerships that accelerate sustainability. These stories show how our battery solutions are not just ideas — they are working, scalable, real-world technologies.
If you have the talent to tell these stories and can master the art of content, media, and communication, we’d like to hear from you. Reach out at info@cleantron.nl.
Greetings from Amsterdam — where Cleantron is powering the future, one battery at a time.
Since 2012 Cleantron is active as Battery specialist. Now, Crunchbase has included Cleantron in the list of most innovative and successful technology companies in the Netherlands. For more info see: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/cleantron
The Battery Show is going virtual for the first time. The exhibition is a leading meeting place for the advanced battery and EV industry. So, meet Cleantron and discuss what you need to create the next great battery application. Get ready and connect with the advanced battery community from 18-20 May, 2021. For more info see: https://www.thebatteryshow.eu/en/digital-days/virtual-expo.html
The new Nuna11 is under development with Cleantron. Students from the Delft University of Technology commit themselves for 1.5 years to build the fastest solar car to race in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2021 in Australia!
Watch the video.
One of the corner stones of the new production line is the robot that places the tested cells in the Battery tray. The robot makes sure that each cell is placed in the correct location and of course with the plus and minus on the right side.
This way the robot creates the required cell configuration by putting cells in parallel and series. In order to meet the required cycle time of the production line, the robot must place a cell each 0,2 s. This means that the robot must move super fast, but also high accuracy is required to place the cylindrical cell inside the cell holder. The high speed in combination with the accuracy means that a very stiff machine frame is needed. Inhouse Computer simulations are performed on the frame in order to check the natural frequencies and the frame stiffness. Also, the exact movements of the robot are simulated in software to optimize the robot movements and to make sure that the robot is not crashing in any other machine parts during the first trials.
The robot can be used to fill different cell types like 18650, 21700 & 26650, different Battery Pack configurations and even completely different Battery Pack models. This allows an optimal flexible production line that can make multiple Battery with short change over times.
As explained in an earlier blog, the first step in the production process is that we test all cells, but we do not only test the cells. We also would like to know their exact position in the final Battery Pack.
Therefore, the cells are picked up from a buffer in which the tested cells are buffered in a fixed order. This way the robot knows exactly which cell is placed at which location in the Battery Pack assuring full Track and Trace ability. This allows us to trace back potential issues in the Battery Pack to the tested data of an individual cell and to the cell ID and production batch ID.
The communication between the robot and the operating system of the line is programmed by one of our Software engineers, in cooperation with our subcontractors. The Robot programming is done inhouse. The inhouse programing enables us to have full control and to enable quick implementations of continuous improvements or even introduce completely new products on the line quickly.
The dangers of Lithium-ion cells are well known, and not just to engineers. Stories about phones violently exploding in people’s handbags or an entire fleet of planes being grounded because of Battery related fires make for great news bulletins after all. Despite this, Li-ion batteries keep being used in basically everything because they are just, so, darn, useful.
The good news is that engineers experienced with these Batteries know exactly what they need to do to keep Li-ion cells safe. Don’t let them get too hot or too cold, don’t overcharge them or discharge them too far, and whatever you do, don’t forget to protect against short circuits.
Consumers don’t have to worry about these kinds of things because any Li-ion application where safety could be an issue has a Battery Management System (BMS) included that measures voltages, currents and temperatures in the Battery Pack, and ensures the cells are disconnected from the application whenever any of its parameters threaten to go outside of safe limits.
So that’s it then, right? No Batteries ever explode, and we all live happily ever after? Unfortunately, the universe can be a bit of a cruel place. For a variety of reasons that take longer than a 750-word Cleantron blog post to explain.
Electronic components can randomly fail without any prior warning. If this electronic component just happened to be part of a safety-critical circuit of the BMS, then we may have just lost the only system that was keeping watch over the cells and that could prevent dangerous failures. So, the one-million-dollar question is: how do you design a BMS that you can trust to do its job? That is where functional safety standards come in.
There are many standards that apply to the field of functional safety, often specializing in various applications (IEC 61508, ISO 26262, ISO 13849, to name a few), but their core purpose is always the same. If you have an electrical, electronic or programmable system performing an automatic task with the specific purpose of keeping a system safe for people, then these standards will remind you that electronics can randomly fail, and that you should implement circuits that can automatically diagnose faults in your safety-critical components.
If any of these diagnostics ever find a fault that could impact the safety of the application, then the BMS should assume the worst and turn off the Battery Pack. This design philosophy of “anything could break at all times” makes for an incredibly challenging design process. For every single component and subsystem on your BMS, an engineer must separately analyze if the component or subsystem is safety-critical and in what ways this component could fail.
If a fault in the component automatically results in the BMS disconnecting the cells, then the component is fail-safe, and you don’t have to worry about it. In any other case, diagnostics need to be implemented, and before you know it you are designing a management system for the management system. Of course, these diagnostics themselves may fail as well, but fortunately the standards recognize that an electric scooter requires a different level of safety than a nuclear power plant (this is what (A)SIL levels are for), so for most applications simple redundancy, or one level of diagnostics, is enough.
One of the interesting challenges in functional safety is to design a Battery Pack that is not just safe, but also still actually works! The safest battery pack is one that never turns on after all, and it sometimes feels like you’re designing a system that is preparing for an explosion at any moment, and you just filter out those few moments where a Battery Pack is just safe enough to actually briefly do its job. I admit there is quite some hyperbole to be found in the previous sentence of course, but nonetheless, increasing safety comes at the cost of Battery Module uptime. Finding a balance in this is quite the challenge.
There are many more aspects to functional safety that are deserving of a full blog post by themselves. For example: is software always safe? (absolutely not, look up the Therac-25); should we have diagnostics for engineers themselves? (we should, engineers are flawed human beings). For now though, I hope I have given you some idea of what functional safety is and why it’s important.
So next time you come across a Cleantron IEC 61508 certified Battery Pack you may just spare a thought for the engineers that processed hundreds of pages of functional safety standards to design a Battery Pack that – despite everything – may sometimes still just do its job!
