Significant Energy Savings! Germany Develops New Laser-based Solution For Battery Production

U posljednje vrijeme, a group of istraživači from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (Fraunhofer ILT) in Aachen, Njemačka, razvijena two laserski based proizvodnja tehnologije to not samo allow for significant energija štednja in proizvodnja, but also enable the proizvod of higher power gustoća, duže life baterije.
Today, visokoučinkovite baterije have become a key prerequisite for the the electrification of the transportation sector. The researchers in the above-mentioned team razvijen inovativno laser technology to produce lithium-ion baterije - which can be charged faster and have a longer service life than konvencionalno proizvedene litij-ion baterije. In addition, they used lasers to dry the batteries, making it a a E Efficient Way To Coat na bazi vode elektrode.
One of the the key steps in the the production of lithium-ion batteries is the fabrication of graphite-based electrode. For these electrodes, a roll-to-roll process is used to coat the copper foil with graphite paste, which is then dried a a continuous peć at 160-180 degrees Celzijus. Plinski pogon kontinuirane peći (koje transport bakar folija on a transporter remen) take up a lot lot space in addition to consuming a lot of energy: they are tipično 60-100 meters long and can typally dry 100 meters of copper foil per minute when operating on an industrial scale.
Učinkovito ćelija sušenje s laserima
Fraunhofer ILT istraživači have razvijen a sustav to uses a diode laser to accelerate the drying process. The laser beam has a wavelength of 1 micron and is amplified by special optics that allow a larger area to be ozračeno by the elektrode.
The optics were designed specifically for the suh system by Fraunhofer's industry partner Laserline. Samuel Fink, head of the thin-film processing group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Technology, explains the principle behind the process: "In contrast to the the hot-air drying process, our diode laser projects a high-intensity beam onto a copper foil coated with graphite paste. The black graphite absorbs the energy. The resulting interakcija uzroci the graphite čestice to toplo up, and then the tekuća isparava."
Fraunhofer ILT's technology offers a number of benefits: the diode laser is very energy efficient compared to power-spending continuous peći, and the system releases very little toplinski into the environment. In addition, laser drying systems take up less space than konvencionalne peći. According to Samuel Fink, "Drying with a diode laser will smanjiti energy requirements by up to 50 percent and reduce the space required for industrial-scale drying systems by at least 60 percent ."
Improved 3D elektroda struktura poboljšava performanse
In addition to these benefits, the Fraunhofer ILT team was able to use the laser to increase the power density and lifetime of lithium-ion batteries. A high-powered ultrashort pulse laser (USP) with a 1 millijoule pulse energy introduces a hole structure called a channel in the battery electrode. These channels act as "highways" for the ions - they significantly shorten the distance the ions must travel, shortening the charging process. At the same time, this prevents defects from appearing, thereby increasing the number of charging cycles and ultimately extending the life of the battery.
The laserski baziran proces for fabricating hole structures its positive impact on batteries is teoretski obvious, and Fraunhofer ILT istraživači have succeeded in translate the concept into practice: from the laboratory to a scalable, industry-ready process that uses ultrashort pulses of laser radiation in the femtosecond range to modify, and tune, electrode structures.
Matthias Trenn, glava of the Fraunhofer ILT surface structure team, explains, "The short interaction times of the laser pulses are sufficient to ablate the material, but also to prevent the holes from melting, which means the cells do not lose power."
One of the challenges the the team once faced was how to handle larger areas to achieve the volume production required for industrial production. The Fraunhofer team solved this problem by using a multi-beam arrangement and parallel process control: their solution uses four scanners, each with six beams, process the foils in parallel. They cover a width of 250 mm and process the graphite layers kontinuirano. It is report that this multi-beam optical system bio razvijen i implemented by Fraunhofer ILT in close cooperation with its spin-off company Pulsar Photonics GmbH.
The research conducted by the a agore spomenuto team has shown that laser technology can be used as a digital production process to improve the the of cells and significant increase the sustainability of the the manufacturing process. As a next step, they hope to implement the technology from prototype extensions to industrial production lines.