Battery Materials

With Coperion and Coperion K-Tron you have the support of a partner who can assist with all your extrusion, feeding and conveying tasks. We supply both single components and complete systems: You can obtain everything from one single source, from raw material handling through to feeding, extrusion and conveying. Our product lines are designed to meet strict requirements for use in industry. We supply our customers, leading companies and research institutions with specialist technical solutions for all tasks – always focusing on safety, product and process quality.

Coperion supports you in switching from a batch process to continuous production of cathode and anode compounds, as well as the manufacture of battery separator films and electrode compounds for solid state batteries. In conjunction with high accuracy Coperion K-Tron feeders, Coperion ZSK twin screw extruders boast high reliability, long operating times and numerous properties that ensure a high and reproducible end product quality. Continuous production enables greater material efficiency and optimized, more cost-efficient battery compound production to be achieved.

Advantages of continuous extrusion (compared to batch processes):

• Excellent cost-effectiveness
• Production range between 1 kg/h and 2,500 kg/h possible
• High and reproducible end product quality
• Significant reduction of solvent content in existing recipes
• Environmentally friendly manufacturing after adaptation of recipes (due to reduced solvent content)
• Easy processing of highly viscous compounds
• Extremely short cleaning times and material efficiency due to self-cleaning effect of the twin screw extruder
• Reduction in space and personnel requirements
• Short residence time in the extruder – little thermal stress on the material
• Reliable devolatilization, even of materials that are difficult to devolatilize
• Excellent feed behavior, even when processing raw materials with low bulk density

Coperion test labs offer you the ideal platform for testing changes or innovations to your products and formulations. In addition to our simulation and scale-up expertise, we have a full range of equipment at our disposal for comprehensive tests and development of processes under realistic production conditions.

In the field of battery masses (anode and cathode slurries), you have the option to carry out customized experiments specific to the question or problem at hand at our Stuttgart Test Lab. Tasks relevant to today’s manufacturing processes, such as switching from batch to continuous production processes while maintaining or even improving end product quality, can be addressed in a controlled environment as well as  questions surrounding maximum solid content of battery slurries or the homogeneity of water-based cathode slurries. Since CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic to reproduction) materials are used in manufacturing cathode slurries, all experiments are conducted in compliance with local regulations for handling CMR substances. Safe handling during use of toxic active materials is thus guaranteed.

Cathode masses experiments at the Stuttgart Test Lab run from raw material feeding to discharge of battery compounds under strictly controlled conditions. Various extruder sizes are available for a wide variety of tasks, such as the ZSK 18 MEGAlab or the ZSK 26 Mc¹⁸ extruder for developing new recipes at lab scale, or the ZSK 32 Mc¹⁸ or ZSK 40 Mc Plus twin screw extruder for scale-up experiments. Using proven scale-up methods, our process engineers convert test results to production scale. The modular construction of the process section and screw shaft allows tests to be tailored to customers’ requirements and formulations. Machines can even be optimized while operating during trials, thanks to our process engineers’ many years of direct experience. For high-accuracy feeding of ingredients that are not always easy to handle, the lab has access to a portfolio of around 100 gravimetric Coperion K-Tron feeders for solid materials (powder) and liquids.

Moreover, the Coperion Test Lab in Stuttgart has an adjacent laboratory with numerous possibilities for bulk material analysis to immediately evaluate product quality and properties. Among these are viscosity measurement (using a plate-plate rheometer), grindometer, and solid content measurement.

Are you interested in trials at our Test Lab? Then contact us.