EU Green Deal project HyMetBat develops new analytical methods for batteries - A “stress ECG” for batteries
Dübendorf, 22.01.2026 — Sustainable and high-performance batteries are a key technology for the energy transition. The EU-funded project HyMetBat aims to accelerate the development of new energy storage systems by developing reliable methods for characterizing different types of batteries. As part of the project, Empa is working on monitoring batteries during operation.
Moving away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy is the goal of the energy transition. Switzerland has set itself the objective of becoming climate neutral by 2050, and the EU wants to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent with its European Green Deal. Paving the way to net zero will take political action and social acceptance, but also new technologies, for example for batteries.
Sustainable, efficient, and scalable batteries are central to climate-neutral mobility – but also as energy storage for renewable energy sources, which are not always available to the same extent. There is therefore a lot of research being done into new battery technologies. Empa is developing innovative battery architectures and materials. Now, an EU project involving Empa is going one step further. The HyMetBat project aims to develop new methods for reliably characterizing sustainable and recyclable batteries – thereby facilitating further research in this field.
HyMetBat, short for Hybrid metrology for sustainable and low-carbon footprint battery materials, builds on the successful EU project OpMetBat and will run until 2028. As part of the project, Empa is working to gain a detailed understanding of the causal chain between material selection, material synthesis, processing, electrode manufacturing, cell construction, operation, and failure of batteries. To this end, radiation-based analytical methods such as neutrons and X-rays are combined with electroanalytical techniques – “in operando,” i.e., while the battery is in operation. This allows researchers to determine, for example, how the electrochemical and mechanical properties of the active materials change during the charging cycle and what effects these changes have on the function of the battery.
“We want to understand batteries during charging and discharging – to record their stress ECG, as it were,” says Artur Braun, physicist and group leader in the High-Performance Ceramics lab at Empa. “To do this, we combine state-of-the-art radiation sources with electrochemical methods and theoretical calculations.” Using these methods, Empa supports its project partners – including the Swiss Federal Office of Metrology (METAS) – in quantitatively classifying processes and verifying them metrologically. The in-depth understanding of the relationships between the construction and functioning of batteries is intended to promote the development and industrial upscaling of new battery technologies.
Empa also contributed to the international opening of the consortium and brought two additional partners from associated and non-EU countries into the network. The consortium behind HyMetBat now comprises a total of more than 30 partner institutions. These include universities, research institutes, and industry partners – “a resilient network for the future of sustainable batteries,” according to Braun. The project is coordinated by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Berlin.
Further Information
Dr. Artur Braun
Empa, High Performance Ceramics
Phone +41 58 765 48 50
artur.braun@empa.ch