Battery and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers across the automotive industry have significant carbon reduction targets in place, to achieve carbon neutrality or even carbon negativity in the coming years. Meeting those targets means reducing Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions put in place by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
At last week’s, The Battery Show in Detroit, MI, Henkel showcased material solutions that enable its OEM and battery manufacturer customers to reduce impact across all emissions categories, while improving battery performance, safety, cost, and process efficiency.
Conductive coatings for dry battery cell manufacturing
Lithium-ion battery production generally relies on solvent-based slurries, which require energy and cost-intensive process steps, including drying ovens, and solvent recovery/recycling.
Henkel’s latest conductive coating provides strong adhesion between battery electrode current collectors and dry active material film, enabling battery manufacturers to implement dry battery electrode processing.
Dry battery electrode processing offers several advantages, including:
- Reduces energy demand by up to 25%
- Potentially reduces electrode production floor space by 60%
- Complies with regulatory measures limiting chemicals of concern
- Enables higher energy densities through thicker electrodes
Chromium-free etch passivation for battery housings
Henkel’s etch passivation process for light metal battery housings eliminates the use of chromium, while shortening processing steps and providing greater production flexibility for metal pretreatment.
The process combines etching and passivation into one step and eliminates a rinse stage, reducing total processing steps from eight in a classical light metal pretreatment process to six. After the process is complete, treated parts have the necessary surface properties for future processing — such as welding, adhesive bonding, and paint adhesion.
Debondable adhesives for EV battery systems
Battery debonding technology is critical to enable end-of-line repair and disassembly of batteries at end of life. Henkel’s research efforts into debondable adhesives include thermal and electrical delamination triggers that help ensure non-destructive dismantling.
“Compared to Europe, the United States is just beginning its journey toward regulatory requirements for EV Batteries,” said Pankaj Arora, VP Electronics & E- Mobility, Henkel Corporation, North America. “But dialogue is continuing to increase and it’s essential we prepare today in order to enable the repair, reuse and recyclability of the battery.”
Filed Under: Adhesives, Batteries, Technology News