Most of the time I don't put too much weight into "revolutionary" battery articles, but this one has my attention, since it has the potential to make most of the equipment in the GF obsolete. It's still early and not ready for prime time but this process would drastically change the way lithium cells are made, speeding up the process and lowering costs. Short version, instead of using a long winding process with many layers this seems more akin to making a PB & J sandwich.
http://qz.com/433131/the-story-of-t...ies-and-maybe-american-manufacturing-as-well/
http://qz.com/433131/the-story-of-t...ies-and-maybe-american-manufacturing-as-well/
In the conventional process, the application of the slurry is relatively quick, but the drying stage can take 22 or more hours. You start out with wet slurry, then coat it onto film—using glue-like substances to make it hold—press it flat to make the electrodes denser, and finally dry it in an oven along the long, slow assembly line. Finally, electrolyte is injected into the battery cell, thus making it wet all over again.
Apart from this slow process, conventional batteries have a second problem: 35% of their interior space is filled with material that doesn’t contribute to generating electricity. That includes the binder that holds the slurry to the film; a separator that keeps the anode and cathode from shorting each other out; and a current collector that brings the charge to an electronic device.
Chiang wanted to reduce the manufacturing process to a single hour. And he wanted to shrink the space filler to almost nothing.
But the result was a manufacturing platform that currently spits out a battery cell in about two and a half minutes. The machine that does it isn’t the size of a factory floor, but of a large refrigerator (see image below). As for the cells, Chiang calls them “semi-solid,” a nod to their birth in research into flow batteries.