Accelerating lithium-ion battery development and slurry production

Soaring sales of electric vehicles and an unprecedented surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries is impacting the need for large-scale battery manufacturing. ystral announced today that it has launched the Batt-TDS™ series of powder dispersing systems for the development and industrial production of electrode slurries for lithium-ion batteries. The platform offers crucial benefits, compared to existing technologies.

Thanks to substantial process advances, ystral can provide battery manufacturers with a solution that is characterised by its high-speed process. The Batt-TDS has the flexibility to handle diverse materials by combining multiple functions of several machines into a single core system. At R&D scale, compared to planetary mixers, which require hours of mixing to accomplish dispersion, the Batt-TDS can complete the entire process in a few minutes, enabling faster R&D cycles for more robust development. Dispersion itself requires only milliseconds as components pass through its inline process chamber. At production scale, this translates to greater than 10x higher productivity than conventional technologies and twice that of available extruders. Easily scalable across various battery chemistries, the Batt-TDS solution is suitable for production at current industrial levels and ready for tomorrow’s gigafactories.

Next generation process technology

ystral’s Batt-TDS inducts powders dust-free under vacuum into a stream of liquid, thereby creating conditions for optimal dispersion of diverse components in a continuous sequence. With independent control of each key parameter, the new technology offers a wide process window in a single piece of equipment. This cannot be achieved with existing systems such as a high-speed dissolver, planetary mixer or even the more modern extruder. Dispersion of polymeric binders, conductive carbons and abrasive active materials is tailored according to their specific physical properties and topologies. The unique technology is able to process high-solids slurries at viscosities exceeding industry requirements, and the wash-in-place (WIP) feature maximises machine availability

Scalable and cost-efficient

The product range includes a 12-litre unit for rapid formulation and process screening as well as production systems for a throughput greater than 5000 litres per hour. David Manke, CTO and Managing Director at ystral, said, “The Batt-TDS is the veritable ‘swiss-army knife’ of process tools for battery slurry. We can now present manufacturers worldwide with a technology to achieve high product quality in a fraction of the time required by conventional processes.” Richard Potter, Director of ystral Asia, added, “The platform offers a low cost of ownership with the highest productivity per square meter of factory space.”

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Further information: www.ystral.com/battery