Heiner Hans Heimes

Process alternatives in the battery production

The future demand for Lithium-Ion-Cells is definitely going to increase. The main part accelerating the development is the cell production for electric cars. In order to gain more market share it is necessary to build up high-quality machines and connect them to an efficient process. Problematic for this target is the diverse process chain. An international survey showed that most companies are focused on just one specific operation; they cannot handle all steps with their own solutions. This paper presents a way to solve the problem by identifying, characterizing and assessing product alternatives along the whole process chain. In addition to that interdependences were detected and technology chains got written down in a last step.

Conception of Technology Chains in Battery Production

Mainly activated by the ambitious global political targets in terms of electrification of transport, the demand for lithium-ion cells will rise strongly in the coming years. Currently, the request is slowed down by the high prices of battery cells. The production process of battery cells is characterized by very heterogeneous areas of expertise in the various process steps. This complicates the economic design of the whole production process considerably and leads to a focusing of the plant engineers to their original core issues. Therefore this article engages at this point and provides a methodology to support the production planner along the entire production planning process. After defining the requirements for the production line, the singular performance of technological alternatives, their suitability for the product as well as the interplay of alternatives are checked. Within in the focus of this paper, all steps are shown in context to lithium-ion-cells. Nevertheless, the presented methodology has a generic approach and can therefore also been used for other production processes.

Fertigungsverfahren von Lithium-Ionen-Zellen und -Batterien

Lithium-Ionen-Batterien fur die elektromobile Anwendung setzen sich aus Batteriemodulen, die aus einer Vielzahl einzelner Batteriezellen bestehen, zusammen (Abb. 18.1). Der jeweilige Verwendungszweck bestimmt die Zahl der Batteriemodule, die gemeinsam mit einem Batterie-Management-System, einem Kuhlsystem, dem Thermomanagement und der Leistungselektronik in einer Lithium-Ionen-Batterie installiert sind. In Batteriemodulen konnen verschiedene Zelltypen, wie die Rundzelle, die prismatische Hardcase-Zelle oder die Flachzelle (Coffeebag- oder Pouch-Zelle) verbaut sein (vgl. Kap. 9).

Lithium-ion cell and battery production processes

Lithium-ion batteries for electric mobility applications consist of battery modules made up of many individual battery cells (Fig. 17.1). The number of battery modules depends on the application. The modules are installed in a lithium-ion battery together with a battery management system, a cooling system, temperature management, and power electronics. Different cell types can be used in battery modules; they include round cells, prismatic hardcase cells, or flat cells such as coffee bag cells or pouch cells (more detailed information available in Chapter 9).

Development of a novel remanufacturing architecture for lithium-ion battery packs

With a rapid growth in the lithium-ion battery technology, particularly in the automotive sector, remanufacturing concepts to ensure maximum efficiency levels may be seen as an attractive option. Such a process does not currently exist and the opportunity to undercut cost-intensive batteries and support green credentials is one which the market is now ready for, namely, an alternative to buying new. A feasible remanufacturing concept can further reduce the current total cost of ownership with an adequate solution under consideration of the current amount of battery pack returners. With this in mind, this research provides a transparent remanufacturing architecture, which can handle a capacity of 5,000 up to 20,000 battery packs per year, depending on the selected degree of automation, manual, hybrid or fully automated. Furthermore, different tools from a factory planning structures will be applied on purpose of an industrial feasible concept. In addition, the assessment considers diverse scenarios of the battery module reusability to ensure a realistic forecast. Consequently, the potential for this outlined concept will compete for an increasing sector of a global market, which is expected to rise to 1.3 billion cars by 2030 and there is a growing interest in electric vehicles. Therefore, any innovations in battery production (and which will include the concept of remanufacturing) have the opportunity to challenge existing business models of practice while further reducing costs for the future customer of tomorrow.

Cost model for an integrated load carrier design process in the lithium-ion battery production

In the recent years, the shift from vehicles fueled with fossil energy to electrically powered cars has notably gained momentum. The major challenge to be overcome is achieving competitive prices in spite of the high costs for traction batteries. Besides product and production process improvement a non-negligible, but often underestimated cost-factor can be found in logistics, since the production technology is not continuous yet and neither are the logistics systems.

Reducing investment costs in multi-variant mass production

Short product life cycles and a high variance within product generations continue to pose major challenges for manufacturing companies. Especially in highly automated mass production, one central question is how to deal with different specifications of product variants during the manufacturing process. Since a large product variety is usually associated with high investment costs, we present a methodical approach addressing the systematic reduction of machine investment in multi-variant production. The procedure is universally applicable to various industries and forms the basis for the development of an integrated construction kit for products and production processes.

Integrated Product and Factory Design for Lithium-Ion Batteries

With a growing market of electric vehicles there will be a high demand for low-priced batteries. Currently, lithium-ion batteries are still extremely expensive and existing cost reduction mechanisms fail to realize significant cost savings. Due to the insecure technological development of lithium-ion batteries it is not evident, how the core quality characteristics of batteries are influenced in the production process. In the design of lithium-ion batteries manufacturability is not sufficiently considered. In addition to the improvements made in battery technology, quality and cost optimized production structures and technologies have to be designed. For that purpose, a new planning approach is needed, facilitating the exploitation of the degrees of freedom in a conjoint development of batteries and the corresponding production processes.