Confidence in EV Battery Materials: Boyd’s Lab

Reliable, high-performance battery materials are essential as demand for electric vehicles (EVs) surges. Boyd’s new EV battery materials test lab offers a faster, more comprehensive material testing solution to meet this demand. Unlike companies that rely on third-party test houses, which takes weeks or months to complete, we streamline the testing process. Boyd consolidates all necessary EV battery material tests in one place. We’re unique in that we test individual EV battery materials and we test different EV battery material combinations. This approach saves valuable time and delivers more reliable results, giving our customers the confidence to move forward faster and more accurately.

The Bottleneck of Traditional Material Testing

Accelerate EV Development with Boyd’s Testing

Boyd consolidates all EV battery material tests into a single facility. We test various material combinations to demonstrate how they will perform together. We can also test individual materials as our customers need. Boyd’s EV battery material test lab provides our customers with streamlined testing processes, reduced timelines, improved accuracy, and comprehensive data. Our tests are structured to simulate highly varying real-world environmental conditions and safety challenges. Some of the key tests we perform include:

Thermal Conductivity Testing:

Abusive Flame Testing:

Hot Side/Cold Side Cycle Testing:

Dielectric Breakdown Strength:

Moisture Resistance:

Beyond Testing: Boyd’s Comprehensive Material Solution

Collaborative Testing: Boyd’s Differentiator

Boyd’s lab specializes in the EV battery market. We tackle the unique challenges of EV applications and deliver results faster than traditional test houses. With thermal conductivity testing up to 800°C, flame testing without grit penetration, and dielectric breakdown testing, we ensure materials meet or exceed EV manufacturers’ strict requirements.

Our ability to quickly verify results gives OEMs the ability to accelerate their project design. By replicating real-world conditions, we prepare materials for the toughest challenges.

Boyd: Your EV Battery Material Partner

By combining material testing, simulation, and prototyping all under one roof, Boyd delivers an unmatched solution for EV battery material development. Our new test lab accelerates the design and development process, providing reliable data to support your decisions. Whether you need thermal protection, blast resistance, or multi-layer material solutions, Boyd’s EV battery materials test lab delivers results that meet or exceed industry standards. To learn about our EV battery solutions, schedule a consultation with our experts to discuss your project needs.

Silicone Molding: Driving Innovation Across Industries

Silicone molding is essential for industries that demand durability, flexibility, and reliability. Its versatile properties enable manufacturers to create application-specific solutions, from seals that endure extreme temperatures to tubes resistant to harsh chemicals. As industries push for higher performance and safety standards, silicone molding continues to drive innovation. Boyd supports this progress by delivering advanced silicone solutions across eMobility, Medical, Industrial, and Food and Beverage sectors, ensuring compliance with industry certifications and providing precision through global manufacturing capabilities.

Advanced Silicone Seals for EV Components

Boyd provides silicone solutions for motor coolant seals, battery housing seals, and charging port seals in the fast-evolving eMobility sector. Our battery housing seals absorb extreme mechanical energy, ensuring efficient assembly and leak-free performance. Boyd’s proprietary silicone polymers offer durable, long-lasting performance in EV applications by resisting oils, liquids, and harsh chemicals. Our charging port seals, engineered with UV and weather-resistant silicone compounds, ensure long flex life and reliable performance in challenging outdoor environments.

Precision Silicone for Medical Devices: Ensuring Patient Safety

Silicone Solutions for Industrial Durability

Boyd’s silicone molding solutions for industrial applications include silicone tubes, assemblies, and seals. We craft formulas and geometries designed to withstand harsh environments like extreme temperatures, high flex cycles, and chemical exposure. Our silicone seals deliver leak-free performance against oils, gases, and other liquids, while providing long-term mechanical damping. These solutions ensure superior protection and reliability, optimizing operational efficiency for industrial systems.

From Dispensing to Packaging: Silicone for the Food and Beverage Industry

Trusted Partner for Regulated Applications: Boyd’s Silicone Molding

Boyd leverages global material innovation and decades of silicone molding expertise to lead in delivering critical silicone solutions for regulated applications. Our technical design and engineering teams provide support with material selection, design for manufacturing (DFM), and prototyping, while our global manufacturing footprint ensures efficient production and distribution. From clean room manufacturing to top silicone formulations, Boyd is your trusted partner for silicone molding solutions.

Whether in eMobility, Industrial, Medical, or Food and Beverage industries, Boyd engineers silicone molding applications for performance, safety, and reliability. Connect with us to explore how we can help innovate your next project.

EV Battery Protection: A Material Showdown

Electric vehicle (EV) battery safety is essential to ensure longevity and prevent extreme EV failures. Manufacturers must employ advanced materials with unique strengths in EV battery protection. These advanced materials include mica, intumescent materials, and ablative coatings. Each material offers unique properties and benefits suitable for different aspects of battery protection.

Mica

Mica, a group of silicate minerals, offers excellent protection for EV batteries. It splits into extremely thin, elastic plates and comes in two main types: muscovite, which withstands temperatures up to 800°C, and phlogopite, which tolerates temperatures above 1000°C. Mica is available in both rigid sheets and flexible rolls and is often mixed with silicone. It is used under battery lids, covers, and separators, providing high-temperature insulation and structural protection. Mica offers good thermal resistance, high dielectric insulation, and cost-effectiveness. However, mica poses challenges like ethical concerns in mining, susceptibility to cracking or flaking, and processing difficulties.

Intumescent Materials

Intumescent materials, which swell when exposed to heat, play a crucial role in EV battery protection. These materials form a heat insulating microporous char, effectively slowing thermal runaway events. This char consists of microporous carbonaceous foam formed by a chemical reaction of three main components: ammonium polyphosphate, pentaerythritol, and melamine. These materials fill air spaces during thermal runaway, release water vapor to cool the event, and provide a flame barrier. However, they may activate at normal cell charging temperatures, causing dimensional instability and releasing moisture into the battery pack.

Ablative Materials

Ablative materials shield EV batteries by absorbing heat and particulates during thermal runaway events. Designed to withstand high temperatures, these materials undergo physicochemical transformations to create effective thermal and particulate barriers. Boyd provides solutions like ablative coatings and heat shielding composites formulated with these materials as additives in high-temperature resin compounds. Compared to mica, which reflects heat, ablative materials offer superior protection by absorbing both heat and particulates, preventing them from causing secondary damage. These materials maintain dimensional stability throughout thermal events.

Shielding the Future: Boyd Transforms Advanced Materials into EV Battery Protection Solutions

Mica: The High-Temperature Defender

Intumescent Materials: Swell to Quell

Ablative Materials: Absorbing Heat

For the most demanding thermal runaway scenarios, ablative materials are the ultimate solution. Boyd offers a range of ablative solutions, including ablative coatings used as additives in high-temperature resin compounds and heat shielding composite materials. Our portfolio includes specific products like:

• BCTRP-101-1000: Single-sided glass cloth with ablative coating for protecting aluminum or PC substrates.
• BCTRP-101-1023: Double-sided glass cloth with a high-blast-resistant ablative center, ideal for steel substrates.
• BCTRP-101-1001: This thermal barrier features added high-temperature silicone/ceramic compression foam, specifically designed for use as compression pads.

Boyd: Shielding Innovation for Safe and Sustainable EVs

EV Battery Module Types

Pouch Cells

Pouch cells are flat, rectangular batteries enclosed in flexible, pouch-like packaging, engineered for seamless integration into irregular or confined spaces within a vehicle’s design. Their uniform distribution throughout the vehicle effectively balances weight and enhances stability, making them an ideal choice for custom designed EVs.

Prismatic Cells

Boyd’s Innovative Solutions for EV Battery Modules

Seal and Protect

Innovate with Boyd

Boyd has decades of experience and expertise delivering insulation and shielding, and sealing and protection solutions for the eMobility industry. We have a track record of shipping over a billion eMobility components and installed our technologies in over 2 million eMobility vehicles. Leverage our 60+ years of automotive heritage for proven reliability and quality. Boyd’s rapid prototyping and design iterations accelerates time to market.

Our advanced material science expertise enable us to incorporate multiple capabilities into vertically integrated eMobility solutions. To learn more about our EV Battery solutions or to discuss your project needs, schedule a consultation with our experts.

EV Battery Charger Types and Hardware

The diverse EV battery charger types such as Level 1 Charging (120V AC), Level 2 Charging (240V AC), and Superchargers (400-800V DC) are tailored for specific purposes.

EV Battery Charger: Challenges

As EV charger technology advances, the electric vehicle charging landscape confronts a range of challenges encompassing charging infrastructure, charging speed, compatibility, energy supply, costs, range anxiety, and battery degradation. For instance, superchargers generate excessive heat due to the high current passing through relatively small-diameter cables and poses a risk for safe and reliable battery operation. Therefore, effective thermal management is a critical aspect of EV charging station performance, reliability, and safety.

Boyd’s Innovative Solutions for EV Battery Charging

Display and HMIs

Elevate the quality and functionality of displays with Boyd’s premium components, expertly engineered and manufactured to withstand the tough environmental and consumer use factors for your charging station. Our offerings include optically clear adhesives, polarizers, anti-glare films, light control films, brightness enhancing films, reflective films, and light diffusing films. We also provide durable nameplates and branding solutions crafted from a versatile selection of materials, including aluminum, stainless steel, acrylic, polyester, and polycarbonate. Enhance customer experience in outdoor environments without increasing weight or power consumption using our robust switch interfaces designed for optimal performance.

Environmental Sealing and Protection

Boyd’s comprehensive range of sealing and gasketing solutions utilizes materials such as silicone foams, closed-cell silicone sponges, polyurethane foam, EVA, vinyl, neoprene, and thermoplastics. We collaborate with flexible adhesives like very high bond tapes, double-coated tapes, transfer tapes, and other materials to efficiently and robustly assemble ingress seals to waterproof charging stations.

Innovate with Boyd

Boyd has decades of experience and expertise delivering over a billion eMobility components worldwide. Leverage our material science heritage to incorporate multiple capabilities into vertically integrated eMobility solutions.

Whether your needs involve safeguarding EV batteries, enhancing brand identity, or protecting advanced superchargers, Boyd empowers you to innovate and accelerate your time to market. To learn more about our EV battery charger solutions or to discuss your project needs, schedule a consultation with our experts

Evolving Innovations across Diverse Industries

Boyd Connects Innovations between Industries

Learn more about the industries we serve in our Connecting Innovations 3D Tool:

Seal, Insulate, and Shield the Latest Technologies

Human Machine Interfaces and Displays

Environmental Sealing and Protection

Innovate with Boyd

With decades of invaluable experience and expertise, Boyd is at the forefront of innovation, designing, manufacturing, and fabricating cutting-edge engineered material solutions across innovative industries. Our world-class engineering, manufacturing, and testing capabilities supported by extensive data and cutting-edge technology enable innovative solutions for specific applications, whether it is a display and HMI solution for data centers or cutting edge medical wearables. We leverage our extensive material science expertise to identify the materials and components necessary to craft innovative solutions that prioritize performance, reliability, and energy efficiency. To explore the full spectrum of Boyd’s engineered material solutions or to discuss your project requirements in detail talk with our team.

Lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries are one of the most commonly used types of rechargeable batteries on the market and can be found in everything from electric vehicles and medical equipment to handheld consumer electronics and energy storage systems.

As battery pack designers continue to push lithium-ion battery limits by increasing energy density and capacity, thermal protection systems must continue to evolve to safely mitigate and protect against increased heat before it builds up to cause thermal runaway.

Thermal Runaway and Why is it Important?

Heat is produced through a chemical reaction during rechargeable battery charge and discharge cycles. This heat is a necessary by-product for a battery to operate, but if left unchecked or the battery was poorly designed, it can quickly build up in the enclosed space of a battery cell or pack. When heat builds up more quickly than it dissipates it causes a chain reaction called thermal runaway in li-ion batteries. As the heat increases, the battery releases more heat through an exothermic reaction, which in turn drives the temperature higher and higher.

If left unmanaged, thermal runaway can cause device malfunction, battery cell degradation, fires, or even explosions. Smart battery design with thermal protection is key to guaranteeing user safety, ensuring battery integrity, and reducing warranty costs.

How Do You Prevent and Manage Thermal Runaway?

There are two main ways Boyd manages thermal runaway. One important consideration with any heat producing component is thermal protection. To protect batteries against thermal runaway, heat needs to dissipate from battery packs more quickly than it can build, which is unique to each battery’s capacity, application, and geometry.

It is important to design batteries with this in mind, incorporating thermal interface materials and thermally conductive adhesives to protect battery cells.

Preventing Thermal Runaway Conditions:

Proactively preventing the conditions that allow thermal runaway is another important prevention method. While lithium is a highly efficient metal for batteries, it is also highly reactive with any kind of moisture, forming lithium hydroxide. In small quantities, lithium hydroxide can lower battery performance, and in large quantities, can cause batteries to combust.

When designing a battery cell or pack, it is critical to ensure that any gaps or joints where moisture or foreign object debris (FOD) can enter are properly sealed. Boyd offers many different gasketing, sealing, and adhesive solutions optimized for ideal compression set, force deflection, and other mechanical factors to waterproof battery packs and cells, not allowing any moisture ingress. Boyd’s gasket solutions also manage shock and vibration, minimizing degradation to battery pack seals from extreme road conditions to ensure seals stays intact throughout the life of the battery.

Incorporating electrical insulation materials in and around the battery cells (such as LectroShield, is important to prevent shorting and sparking, which can also drive heat and lead to thermal runaway.

Isolating Thermal Runaway:

While proper prevention strategies can help reduce the chances of a thermal runaway event occurring, it is important to design batteries to prevent propagation if a catastrophic event occurs. Driver and public safety are top concerns in transportation with duplicated safety measures designed into critical applications. Keeping the individual battery cell or affected component isolated is critical as a backup safety design to contain thermal runaway if preventative designs fail.

Designing the battery packs with this in mind is the best way to isolate any thermal runaway event. Incorporating flame barriers made of flame retardant materials (such as SOLIMIDE® foam or polymeric insulators) in between battery cells can prevent fire from reaching other thermally sensitive components should a thermal runaway event occur.

The Boyd Difference

Boyd has strategic alliances with raw material suppliers globally for adhesives, foams, thermal interface materials (TIMs), shielding, insulators, and many other advanced engineered materials. We combine these partnerships with our extensive manufacturing capabilities and design expertise to create multilayer stack-ups of materials optimized to prevent and isolate thermal runaway for your battery application.

Our engineers have decades of experience offering design support, ensuring components are designed for manufacture (DFM) and optimized for assembly. This allows us to combine different solutions for flammability, sealing, gasketing, collision protection, and more from multiple vendors into a single fully integrated product, lowering overall cost and lead times.

To learn more about Boyd’s battery solutions, visit battery page.

For decades, engineers have looked for ways to lower component and assembly weight to create greener and more economical products. As production processes and raw materials evolve, products can often be manufactured to meet performance requirements with less materials by utilizing more optimal options, or omit certain materials entirely.

Lightweighting was historically a primary concern in the automotive and aerospace industries to optimize fuel efficiency. This is leading to better battery ranges in today’s modern electric vehicles and increased payloads in aircrafts. As other industries turn towards greener, more efficient, and more comfortable solutions, lightweighting is now a common goal for manufacturers and designers of consumer devices, medical equipment, and much more.

What is Lightweighting?

Lightweighting is the process of removing weight from a component or assembly. Designers and manufacturers lightweight products in one of three ways:

Substituting materials:

The most common approach to lightweighting is to replace heavier materials with less dense and/or stronger materials and components. With the right design, heavy materials like metals can be replaced with thermally conductive plastics or ceramics. High density, heavy weight fiberglass insulation can be replaced with low density polyimide foam, like SOLIMIDE(R) Foam, in marine and aerospace applications. Engineers constantly source and formulate new materials to meet stringent performance requirements at the lowest possible weight, so reconsidering the materials used in an assembly is an important recurring focus for manufacturers.

Optimizing designs:

Instead of substituting materials, another way to remove weight is by implementing different technologies or improving a preexisting design.

Eliminating materials:

As production processes and materials evolve, components can often be removed from assemblies entirely while still meeting structural, flammability, and thermal requirements. This often goes together with optimizing designs, such as removing cumbersome mechanical fasteners from an assembly by using adhesive-backed foam. We leverage our extensive material selection, manufacturing capabilities, and design expertise to create multilayer stack-ups that combine multiple features into a single component, further helping to eliminate materials from an assembly.

Why is it Important?

Lightweighting has far-reaching implications for a wide variety of industries. In the automotive, eMobility, transportation, and aerospace fields, lowering overall assembly weight increases fuel or energy efficiency and lowers the total environmental footprint. In the consumer electronic and medical industries, lowering the weight of a wearable or handheld device can enhance user comfort, extend the amount of time between recharging, and reduce shipping costs. For industrial and agricultural applications, reducing weight can help increase overall payload and agricultural yield, enhancing overall efficiency and profitability.

With increasingly stringent requirements for safety, sustainability, and efficiency, lightweighting is becoming a focus for every new product. Optimizing weight can lower waste, decrease costs, and enhance product function.

The Boyd Difference

Instead of focusing on removing or substituting a single material, Boyd’s engineers take an integrated approach to lightweighting challenges. Our extensive supplier relationships and innovative design support allow us to guide design decisions, resulting in lower overall assembly weight while ensuring that all performance requirements are met. Our engineers have decades of experience designing components for manufacture (DFM) and optimized assembly. Boyd’s global locations also help lower overall footprint by reducing necessary transit for components and providing vertically integrated solutions.

To learn more about how Boyd can help solve your lightweighting challenges, schedule a consultation with our experts.

As performance requirements for integrated touchscreens and displays continue to evolve, effectively bonding display components together is critical. A typical display is composed of many layers such as cover glass, a touchscreen, and/or an LCD that are all integrated to ensure the display functions optimally under its intended conditions. Boyd combines these separate components together using high-grade adhesives and unique bonding technologies.,

As a front panel integrator, Boyd offers three main bonding technologies to help customers develop the ideal display construction and component stack-up: air gap (or framed adhesive), rigid-to-rigid liquid optically clear adhesive (LOCA), and optically clear adhesive (OCA) bonding. These bonding solutions serve a wide range of industries, including consumer, medical, military, automotive, instrumentation, and industrial controllers.,

We discuss the benefits and challenges of each of these bonding technologies in this three-part blog series. To begin, we review one of the original display bonding capabilities at Boyd: air gap bonding.

What is the Process Behind Air Gap Bonding?

Air gap bonding uses a framed adhesive gasket around the perimeter of the display layers, leaving behind a small air gap within the stack-up. As there are no liquid adhesives to dispense and no cure time, air gap bonding is significantly less expensive than other bonding options.

Why Choose Air Gap Bonding?

Air gap constructions are cost-effective and lightweight, so they are popular solutions for applications with no readability or impact-resistance requirements.

While the lower cost is a benefit, this construction can present a few challenges. The air gap can affect screen clarity in bright light due to additional light refraction. Displays with air gaps are also more susceptible to moisture damage and breakage, so they are not ideal for outdoor applications or harsh environments.

Boyd has decades of experience creating custom display bonding technologies for the ideal stack-up in your display. To learn about the other bonding technologies available at Boyd, read the other blogs in our series below.,

Liquid Optical Clear Adhesive (LOCA) Bonding

Optically Clear Adhesive (OCA) Bonding

What components make up an “Integrated Display”?

What makes automotive displays different from other types of display modules?

How do you decide on what type of touchscreen to use?

How do you choose what bonding to use?

How much do Display Integration techniques vary between industries?

How can I protect my display?

What is the most exciting display application that you have worked on?

What do you think is the future of Display Integration?