The core structure of a conventional Li-ion battery cell consists of an aluminum foil current collector, a cathode layer, a separator saturated with liquid electrolyte, an anode layer, and a copper foil current collector. During cell manufacturing, the anode and cathode layers are coated onto their respective current collector foil, dried, calendered, and eventually sandwiched with the separator and electrolyte to form a single battery cell. Controllable coating of the anode and cathode layers (also known as “electrodes”) is critical to battery performance. Slot-die coating is, therefore, often used for this electrode coating process in order to produce high-quality electrodes with excellent accuracy at high line speeds with little waste.

Even as battery materials and stack configurations become increasingly sophisticated, low-cost, high-quality manufacturing is certain to remain a constant requirement for mainstream adoption. Developing new battery materials and coating processes for slot-die-based manufacturing can boost the impact, commercial viability, and scaling potential of these new technologies even at the early R&D and pilot-scale stages.

FOM Technologies lab- and pilot-scale slot-die coating tools make it easy to develop and demonstrate new slot-die-based battery coating processes without the burden of bulky, conventional slot-die coating lines.

Our tools mimic industrial roll-to-roll coating equipment while fitting into a convenient benchtop form factor and requiring just a few milliliters of solution to begin coating.

Our high-viscosity slot-die configurations are optimized for thick, viscous electrode slurry coatings. At the same time, our low-viscosity product line is ideal for exploring scalable solid electrolyte and interlayer coatings on the nanometer scale.

Our simple laptop interface gives excellent control over key experimental parameters and enables easy operation of our tools inside an argon glovebox. Finally, when you’ve optimized your proof-of-concept coating samples, we make it easy to transition to full roll-to-roll coating with our customizable pilot lines.