LEAD announces new battery electrode high-speed dry coating process
LEAD asserts that as battery demand continues to grow, coupled with stricter environmental regulations, battery coating remains a core process in intelligent battery production, which plays a “critical role in overall battery performance.” The new battery coating technology uses a “solvent-free, energy-efficient solution that sets a new benchmark for clean, high-performance battery manufacturing,” which is purpose-built for industrial-scale production.
As LEAD calculates, the battery coating processes’ drying stage accounts for about 35% of energy consumption in the production of battery cell manufacturing. Furthermore, the use of solvents accounts for ongoing challenges in terms of toxicity, environmental impact, and high recovery costs.
The Chinese battery manufacturer writes that the system delivers an “end-to-end process integration, spanning powder unpacking, metering, fiberization, film formation, current collector lamination, waste recovery, and product quality inspection. It represents a complete dry coating solution, optimized for mass production.”
According to LEAD, the process functions using a series of innovations, including advanced thermal control using a variable-diameter uniform-temperature electric heating system, which reduces energy consumption by 60 per cent, compared to oil-heated systems. The three-stage temperature control system also requires only factory cooling water, “eliminating the need for external temperature control units and cutting energy use by approximately 50%.”
The system is a complete end-to-end process, starting with powder mixing, anti-agglomeration screening, and dynamic pre-mixing and concludes with coating uniformity. A recycling plan is also included to reduce “high-value waste material.” The system also features real-time gap monitoring with ±1μm precision, allowing for adjustment on the fly, and is advertised as being particularly operator-friendly and featuring a production-ready design. LEAD’s new battery dry coating technology thus “reduces overall energy consumption by more than 35%, while also lowering materials and manufacturing costs by over 20%.”
LEAD’s customers are global, and the company has been aiming for European markets for some time, for example, supplying end-of-line systems for an Italian battery factory earlier this year. Last year, we also interviewed LEAD’s Chairman Yanqing Wang. The Chinese company is not the only major manufacturer working on this process, as Volkswagen subsidiary PowerCo had announced a battery dry coating process in 2023, citing similar energy and material savings plans. In the same year, Tesla also revealed that it was working on dry coating for its large 4680 cells.
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