IR assisted vacuum drying in a continuous roll to roll process for post-drying of electrodes

Presented by Dr. Larisa von Riewel, Excelitas Noblelight

The post-drying of electrodes and separator for lithium-ion batteries just before cell assembly is needed to ensure that the moisture content is below a critical level. This step is important in electrode manufacturing as the remaining water can lead to cell degradation and thus cause a safety risk. On an industrial scale, post-drying is most commonly conducted either in continuous roll-to-roll processes, where the electrodes or separators are often heated by infrared emitters, or batch-wise by post-drying whole coils in vacuum ovens. Considering this we investigated the combination of both different post-drying procedures on Li and Na -ion battery and evaluated the benefits of IR assisted vacuum drying in a continuous roll to roll process.