High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

EU must enhance its battery cell production machinery to diminish its dependence on Asian suppliers and attain sustainable mobility. The EU-funded BATMACHINE project addresses challenges impeding EU machinery competitiveness, such as fragmented supply chains and inadequate research and development (R&D) investment. The talk will cover integrated machinery development, encompassing automated modular slurry mixing, novel coating and drying systems, and integrated calendaring technology. Industry 4.0 principles are being implemented through AI-based quality control, a collaborative data space, and digital interfaces. This enables process optimization, scrap reduction, and supports battery passport development.

Manufacturing 4690 cells involves the use of laser structuring for thick-film electrodes. Those batteries undergo an accelerated electrolyte filling process. Electrolyte rewetting during battery operation is significantly enhanced, contributing to an increased cycle lifetime and prevents lithium plating during fast charging. The R2R pilot line is undergoing further development to enhance process efficiency. It uses advanced, high-power, ultrafast lasers which have been successfully used with various types of electrode materials.

This session will demonstrate how AM Batteries’ Powder-to-Electrode dry manufacturing process delivers batteries that are lower cost, higher performance, and more sustainable. We’ll present recent results across NMC, LFP, and Si-C; show why dry electrodes are an enabling technology for solid-state and sodium-ion; compare capex, opex, energy use, and footprint versus wet coating and alternative dry methods; and outline a production-ready roadmap.

A battery management system (BMS) chipset with built-in Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) may bring lab-grade diagnostics into vehicles. These features may be used to support fast charging current setting and temperature monitoring in a faster, safer, and more accurate control loop. This presentation will explore the reality of implementation.

We propose to apply computer simulations to support process development in cell and battery production to increase process understanding and optimise production parameters. We will present our approach for describing the foam encapsulation process for batteries with cylindrical cells using an advanced foam expansion model and an efficient numerical solver. Additionally, we'll also touch on our approaches for estimating the electrolyte wetting time and improving the calendering process.

Development of advanced US-patented cathode materials is critical to establishing next-generation domestic energy storage technologies. Wildcat will highlight breakthrough performance of high energy, low cost, and cobalt-and nickel-free Disordered Rocksalt (DRX) cathodes. Wildcat has significantly improved performance in cycle life, voltage fade, and resistance growth while maintaining high energy density. The material has also been demonstrated with roll-to-roll coating and multi-layer pouch cells. This work provides promising performance of DRX cathodes—such that US cell manufacturers should add this material to their product roadmaps.

Silicone potting foams are essential for electric vehicle battery safety and sealing, where precise property control and robust processing are critical. Dow has advanced silicone foam technology to enable customisation of key attributes—viscosity, cure kinetics, density, cell size, compression behavior, and fire resistance—meeting diverse application needs. New testing capabilities provide detailed insights into cure kinetics under varying thermal conditions, strengthening formulation-performance understanding. Dow will present how material innovation, advanced testing, and simulation-driven process optimisation enable tailored foam properties, predictive dispensing models, and foam growth simulations—delivering reliable, efficient solutions that meet stringent EV safety and manufacturing standards.

CPI supports partners in the battery-materials and cell-technology areas to accelerate the translation of their innovations from lab- to commercial-scale. We undertake materials scale-up, automated formulation, coating, and characterisation, alongside extensive know-how in process chemistry and engineering. Here we present case studies demonstrating our work in this field with examples of materials, slurry, and cell development. Use of our materials scale-up facility (AMBIC) will also be detailed.

Since our inception, we have continued to provide integrated solutions from design to mass production, leveraging our expertise in lithium-ion technology. Beff Navigator, which accelerates the development of lithium-ion battery materials and cells, is an innovative software that enables a rapid end-to-end process—from concept creation and specification design to prototyping, testing, and validation—supporting customers in bringing their products to market faster. In addition, our team of professional battery engineers provides expert support, allowing for the creation of more precise specifications, high-quality prototyping and testing, and advanced analysis of results. Beff Navigator provides integrated solutions from design to mass production.

Dry electrode manufacturing represents a major step forward in sustainable battery production, addressing the environmental and economic challenges of conventional wet-chemical methods that rely on toxic solvents and energy-intensive drying. The DRYtraec process, developed by Fraunhofer IWS, enables solvent-free electrode fabrication through differential roll-speed calendering, allowing precise control of shear forces and uniform powder distribution. This versatile approach delivers high-quality electrodes with comparable electrochemical performance to slurry-based techniques. The presentation will explore the underlying principles, processing advantages, and recent achievements of DRYtraec technology across various systems, including lithium-ion, lithium-sulfur, sodium-ion, and solid-state batteries.

Chem4Batteries provide concrete metrics on how the commercialisation of innovative technologies across the battery value chain can be accelerated. The company will emphasise its services, particularly in battery material validation and battery cell prototyping. Focus is placed on the state-of-the-art benchmarking and prototyping laboratory located in Berlin. Target groups include raw material suppliers, battery material producers, cell manufacturers, battery recycling companies, and end-users (OEMs) who are pursuing targeted cell improvements.

AI is transforming our daily work and the battery industry is no exception. From material discovery to manufacturing, AI has the potential to accelerate development, to enhance quality, and to enable smarter, data-driven decisions. In R&D, it can predict new materials and combinations and can also optimise cell and battery designs. In production, it can drive efficiency through predictive maintenance and real-time control. Yet adoption remains early, limited by data silos, security concerns, and missing organisational AI governance. Vertical integration will be key to success, providing end-to-end data access and ownership. The vision is clear: AI can revolutionise battery innovation—but the journey has just begun.

This talk will review the different stages (electrode manufacturing, cell assembly, and cell formation) and steps (up to nineteen, ranging from mixing to coating to calendaring to electrolyte filling and OCV testing) and will explore approaches to reducing both capex and opex costs in each.

I present an integrated framework utilising pilot line process data, physics-based modelling, and AI to optimise sodium-ion battery electrode manufacturing. Applications of our approach include the investigation on how process parameters influence the textural and electrochemical features of hard carbon electrodes. This multi-scale methodology allows bridging the gap between material properties and final cell performance, adapting our previously validated ARTISTIC approach from lithium-ion batteries.

IAV has been developing bipolar battery technologies since 2014 with the goal of increasing volumetric efficiency in automotive battery systems while reducing costs through simplified architectures. Until 2021, several research projects investigated materials, manufacturing processes, and system integration. Building on this foundation, current collaboration with OEMs focuses on improving technology readiness and transferring bipolar battery concepts into scalable, high-performance manufacturing environments. This presentation provides an overview of manufacturing-oriented development results, key challenges for industrialisation, and the next steps toward series production. Special attention is given to solid-state electrolytes, whose increased maturity represents a key enabler for robust bipolar battery manufacturing.