BRUCKMÜHL, Germany — Drying and surface processing specialist adphos Thermal Processing GmbH (ATP) has developed a new drying solution for anode and cathode water-based and solvent-based coatings.

According to ATP, aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing allows a complete electrode coating drying 10 times faster and with only a fraction of drying power, down to 10% of the present standard convection-based drying solutions. Based on the company’s advanced NIR (aNIR)-platform technology, with the propriety aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing, an electrode coating up to 150 µm thickness can be dried in ≤ 2 s and only requires a coating thickness up to 400 µm ≤ 5 s. ATP stated that with currently experienced limitations at accelerated drying rates — especially observed with infrared and laser-based heating/drying systems — are not given with aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing, due to avoidance of cracking or resulting binder migration induced low coatings adhesion to the electrode substrates.

The aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing can be adapted and optimized to the specific solvent-based coatings, offering a volume and therefore energy reduced final solvent treatment. Even an integration of aNIR-based booster configurations in existing battery electrode drying facilities can improve productivity and upgrade to higher coating thicknesses.

With aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing, a new milestone of battery manufacturing is achieved due to higher capacity, higher productivity, less drying energy requirements, and reduced solvent treatment costs. Learn more at www.adphos.com.