PROBLEM: With the market appetite for electric cars and consumer electronics increasing globally, battery manufacturers need to pack higher capacities into ever-smaller battery sizes. This sets extreme demands on manufacturing precision to ensure battery safety.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR SOCIETY: Failing to do so caused for example the global Samsung smartphone recall in 2016 – microscopic imperfections in electrodes were too small to detect. Those imperfections led the batteries to short circuits, putting consumers in direct danger. While this might sound like a small issue concerning high-end smartphones – imagine if similar incidents happen in electric cars. Manufacturers need to pack more power into batteries to achieve a longer range so that more consumers would switch to electric, while over time the batteries also need to get thinner to reduce the weight of the cars. However, higher energy density comes with a higher risk of a short circuit, which can only be mitigated with extremely precise quality control at the level of battery cell manufacturing. It is clear that traditional technologies used in Li-ion battery manufacturing and quality control systems, such as laser scanners, are simply not sufficient to detect defects in new high-density battery cells.
OVERALL OBJECTIVES:
We will achieve TRL 9 during the Phase 2 project by increasing the speed of our sensors from 4 000 3D profile measurements per second to over 100 000 profiles per second. Based on this, we will introduce the next generation on-line sensors for quality control in high precision, high-speed manufacturing in the Li-ion battery and 3D cover glass industries. The EU grant will enable us to simultaneously ramp up commercialization efforts, particularly in the automotive battery sector targeting the European market.
