At the wbk Institute of Production Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), pioneering
battery production can already be experienced. To make this more flexible and efficient, researchers have set up
an agile cell production facility for lithium-ion batteries as part of the AgiloBat project. With the help of
robot-based automation in mini-environments, a level of flexibility was achieved that was previously only
possible in the manual production of lithium-ion batteries.
Thanks to customizable processes and program changes, a wide variety of cell geometries can be produced in the
drying room without having to extensively retool the system. The researchers developed special robot cells for
this purpose, which are a world first in terms of their design and construction.
They were designed and built by
Exentec Germany GmbH, a company of the Exyte Group.
Exyte, the international building technology and plant
engineering company based in Stuttgart, designs, plans and provides sustainable and ultra-clean production
facilities for high-tech industries, including semiconductor and battery factories, data centers and facilities
for the biopharmaceutical industry.
One of Exentec's specialties is clean and dry rooms. Or, in the words of
Nicole Neub, Director of Battery Technology at Exentec: “We are responsible for the necessary dry air in the
battery manufacturing process.”
Every process step
in a mini-environment
It is well known that the ambient air in the production of battery cells must contain very little humidity. To
be more precise: to prevent oxidation or moisture inclusions during the processing of the sensitive battery
materials, the relative humidity is usually less than 1 percent. If it is higher, this can later lead to quality
problems or even critical battery failures.
The required dryness is produced in so-called mini-environments. “Individual process steps in production and the
associated machines are enclosed and the filtered air is brought directly to the process,” explains Nicole Neub.
“This means that only the machine is supplied with clean, dry air and not a large, unused volume of air from the
production hall.” In the industrial mass production of battery cells, entire production areas are usually
operated as a drying room, which is not necessary for individual processes and requires large amounts of energy.
In the AgiloBat project, energy reduction is achieved using container-like boxes in which a dew point of up to
-50 °C prevails.
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The KUKA robot works precisely around the clock in the mini environment – and, unlike a human worker,
ensures that the air stays dry © KUKA
