adphos Thermal Processing GmbH (ATP), Heufeld, Germany, a specialist in drying and surface processing, has developed a new drying solution for anode and cathode water based and solvent based coatings.
The “aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing” allows a complete electrode coating drying, ten 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 own development 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 for a coating thickness up to 400 µm ≤ 5 s is only required.
Todays widely 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.
In addition, the “aNIR-Battery Electrode Processing” enables adapted and optimized to the specific solvent based coatings, 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, the company says.