The UN's 2030 Agenda represents the new global sustainable development framework and sets 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These SDGs balance the three dimensions of sustainable development namely economic, social, and environmental. Battery production. As the demand for batteries increases for electrifying the future, environmentally friendly and cost-effective battery production plays an important role to achieve as-mentioned SDGs.
The core vision of the BATMACHINE project is centred on strengthening Europe’s battery cell industrial manufacturing value chain by developing new battery cell manufacturing machinery. This is done whilst giving priority to minimising the energy needed for cells production, enhancing plant efficiency rates and integrating intelligent control processes to reduce scrap. BATMACHINE will develop and implement an optimised and energy efficient process chain considering slurry mixing (automated universal modular process set-up including monitoring techniques), exclusive slot-die coating and drying novel machinery (with one side coating, a coating speed of 1m/min up to 20m/min and a web width of 300 mm) together with a calendaring tool to be integrated in a battery manufacturer for process optimisation. Moreover, intelligent control processes and Industry 4.0 will be intensively integrated through the creation of a collaborative and FAIR data space for battery cell production. Digital interfaces between battery manufacturing equipment, control system, and engineers will be developed. With those improvements in place, BATMACHINE aims to reduce the energy consumption of the individual machines by 20%, increase their productivity by 10% and increase the accuracy measurement within a variance of 3%. Moreover, BATMACHINE intends to reach a 70% of the measurement of the FAIR quality of the data as well as leading the way to the implementation of the battery passport.
The developed machines will be tested individually and altogether at different manufacturing pilot lines by producing up to 100 Ah capacity cells. This will validate the machinery universality, efficiency and digitalisation set-up. Additionally, the integration of renewable energy sources in the energy supply of the battery production site will be assessed by using an in-house built optimisation model and the optimal design of the energy supply will be defined, both in terms of cost and emissions. At this stage, further digitalisation tools, such as implementation of sensors and interoperable algorithm integration will be deployed for optimisation of the full manufacturing process.
Following those actions, BATMACHINE targets to reduce by 5% the full manufacturing process cost and increase in 20% the energy efficiency of the whole manufacturing processes. Moreover, environmental, social, and economic impacts of different machinery, production line configurations and factory designs will be precisely assessed to establish best practice proposals and implement the needed ecological standards. In this regard, the actions developed in the project will have as a goal to reduce the carbon footprint by 10%, decrease the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of at least 15%, and create jobs in the battery industry. Additionally, BATMACHINE aims to stimulate and intensify the collaboration between pilot line operators, industrial-scale academia, cell manufacturing companies, and European equipment companies to push innovations about high performant, economically and ecologically sustainable cell production in Europe. Through continuous exchange (inside and outside the consortium with a total of 4 panels/workshops) specific guidelines on how to scale up a battery production line up to a Gigafactory will be provided together with a catalogue for benchmark and comparison purposes
