PhD Research Scholar – Battery Technology

About The Program:

Objective: To apply rich knowledge and research mindset and empower them to build rewarding and satisfying careers in the fields of energy storage and electrification.

Structure: Paid program of nine-month duration.

Eligibility: PhD Scholars registered with premier institute/university in India or abroad in a relevant academic discipline, currently employed or doing projects in specifically identified areas (pursuing PhD).

Place of Work: Bangalore

Who We Are:

With new technologies and business models increasing in importance at high speed, the transportation and infrastructure industries are changing more and at higher pace than ever before. As the Volvo Group, we are accelerating to drive our industry forward also in these important areas. Do you want to join our journey and shape tomorrow’s society together with us?

Working at Volvo Energy, you are here to make a fundamental break through and propel electrification, from development of charging and infrastructure solutions to monitor and optimize, refurbish/remanufacture, reuse/repurpose and recycle state-of-the-art batteries that power our Volvo Group products. Joining us means working in a global context with people from diverse backgrounds and different nationalities while contributing to the core business and results of Volvo Group. We are goal oriented and business focused people who believe that the best results are achieved while having fun and when we challenge each other. Sustainability and diversity are in our DNA, since Volvo Energy was created in April 2021. The story continues here.



What Will You Do

You will be given a unique opportunity to contribute to the early development of Volvo Energy together with the leadership team and a set of skilled and committed colleagues. Together we will work on solutions that will drive economically viable circularity and take us to a sustainable future. With high speed and agility, we will support the Volvo Group to meet and exceed customers’ expectations and thereby contribute to a society that we all want to live in.

You will be responsible for understanding batteries from inside be its degradation or its safety and translate the knowledge to product offerings. Our key focus areas are knee prediction during aging, battery safety, algorithms in and around SOH, battery optimization etc.

We have an agile way of working, where each team plan their activities in sprints and deliver solutions together as a team. We strive to have a transparent and honest environment within the teams, where it is easy to ask each other for support when needed. The tasks can be either part of a larger project or short tasks to improve products currently in production.

You will get the opportunity to interact with highly committed colleagues from different cultures. We hope you will learn as much from us as we will from you.




Who Are You

We believe that to be successful in this position, you are a team player, have strong expertise in battery technology, electrochemistry, modelling, algorithm development, and a will to deliver.

Also a Master's Degree holder in Electrochemistry, Science, Engineering, or other equivalent background and pursuing a PhD in battery modelling, algorithm development, safety, and optimization.

You have a willingness to learn and take more responsibility with can-do attitude.


You Will Make a Difference
We now need to strengthen our team with world-class battery competence. You will get the opportunity to take an active role in one of our top priorities. Understanding battery degradation, knee prediction during capacity fade, safety of the batteries, are few of the key areas where one can contribute. You will work closely with our amazing colleagues within the engineering team that focuses on battery monitoring and optimization.

Battery aging depends on various usage conditions. In real life application it’s a combination of all the affecting parameters during cyclic and calendar aging. You will be responsible for modelling (both physics based or empirical) aging to predict state of health and remaining useful life for various type of batteries. What introduces non-linearity or abrupt capacity fade, end of safe limit for usage would be our key focus areas.

In safety your starting point will be to learn how to make the batteries safer during the complete life cycle from a risk-free sustainability perspective. To understand the battery safety and failure mechanisms for different applications will be a crucial part of the development process. Finally, you are responsible to make some innovative and creative contribution in terms of designing tests or analyzing data to ascertain safety limits for second life usage. A clear focus would be about Li plating, dendrite formation and thermal runaway. We expect you to propose some novel and realistic methods for early detection of Li dendrites to avoid an internal short-circuit and thermal runaway.

Accurate estimation of functions for battery management system depends on algorithm we develop. There are key challenges when we use various generation of batteries in a pack or use it to lower SOH value than usual. Our key focus areas are developing algorithms for SOX, which includes but not limited to SOH, SOP (for optimizing battery health) etc. Depending on the usage how we can extend battery life by optimizing the usage is one of the areas, where one can also contribute.

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