ProLiT

Funded by: BMBF

Contact person: Marcella Horst

Summary of the project:

The current state of the art in lithium-ion battery electrode production is a solvent-based process route. The drying of these coated electrode slurries is very energy- and time-intensive. In addition, the space and investment requirements of such a drying system on an industrial scale are extraordinarily high. This expense is counteracted by a new dry-coating process, which needs to be established. In the process (toxic) solvents, cost-intensive drying and complex emission treatment can be avoided.

This project combines all necessary competences from industry and science for the holistic development of a dry coating for cathodes for use in lithium-ion batteries (LIB). A hybrid approach combines LIB material development with process and equipment development with the aim of transferring highly scalable and competitive processes and products to industry. Overall, the project opens up economic and ecological competitive advantages, e.g. by eliminating the toxically critical N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and a substantial CO₂ reduction. The material synthesis and development aims at an adaptation and optimisation of the LIB materials for the dry coating process to realise the required electrode properties. This includes formulation development as well as understanding the creation and impact of the microstructure, taking into account the framework conditions for solvent-free process control. Another unique selling point of the project is the process and plant development of an efficient industrial process in terms of throughput in combination with product development. This involves the mutual consideration of scalable mixing processes for material structuring discontinuously in the batch mixer and continuously in the extruder, continuous powder feeding and handling as well as the single- and multi-stage coating process in the specially adapted multi-roll calender. The identification of potentials with regard to the industrialisation of the processing procedures is always in focus.

Objectives and tasks

• Identification of process-structure-property relationships of the mixing process on powder dosing and layer forming.
• Scaling of the mixing process
• Development of continuous powder dosing
• Investigation of a multi-roll process for dry electrode coating
• Identification of process parameter set-up for dosing and dry coating
• Interactions of system components

Project Partner:

• Customcells Holding GmbH
• Daikin Chemical Europe GmbH
• IBU-tec advanced materials AG
• Matthews International GmbH Department Saueressig Engineering
• Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster - MEET-Batterieforschungszentrum
• associated partner: Coperion K-tron Deutschland GmbH, Maschinenfabrik Gustav Eirich GmbH & Co. KG, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG