Sick AG

https://sick.ch

Mar 14, 2023

Full speed ahead for electromobility: Increasing throughput in battery cell folding

Battery cell production and its processes are far from fully developed. To speed up the manufacturing process for battery cells, the Technical University of Munich (TU Berlin) has developed a folding process that allows higher throughput rates. At higher machine and process speeds, however, the requirements on the automation engineering also increase. The sensors from SICK play a decisive role in solving these requirements.

Battery technology – the heart of electromobility

It is expected that by 2030 the majority of cars produced will be electrically operated. That is why the production capacity for battery cells is rising and the predicted investments in battery cell factories are already exceeding by several fold the global production volume in 2022. A core process in the production of battery cells is the processing of the electrode foils and separators. Different processes are used for different cell types. This includes the winding of foil tracks to produce so-called “jelly rolls”. Various stacking processes ensure that cell stacks are formed from the individual anodes, cathodes and separators. The winding processes are already characterized by high speeds and process stability. And the stacking of battery cells offers advantages for the electrical performance of the batteries. The combination of the two processes is referred to as Z-folding, where individual electrode sheets are connected with a separator just prior to folding.

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