Swiss technology firm Bühler, which provides technology for the production of high-performance electrode slurries, has opened a laboratory in China.
The company said the facility (pictured) in Wuxi, near Shanghai in eastern China, will focus on supporting the country’s “booming” EV battery industry.
China is “witnessing high demand for electrode slurry plant projects, thanks to ambitious government plans to electrify the automotive sector”, Bühler said.
The company said it has developed a process for the “fully-continuous mixing of electrode slurries”— to meet the requirements of the lithium-ion battery industry— together with Chinese battery manufacturer Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock company.
Bühler said it has also equipped 10 industrial-scale production lines for Lishen, which “aims to be at the forefront of the Chinese battery industry”.
The new 400-square-metre lab is contained within a “large dry room, allowing us to process and study battery raw materials which are susceptible to moisture”, Bühler said.
Bühler’s direct of market segment solutions Adrian Spillmann said the “heart of the lab” is a proprietary continuous twin-screw mixer with multiple powder and liquid feeders. “We are using this technology to produce battery samples on a much better performance and consistency level than with conventional methods,” Spillmann said.
Three process engineers and a service engineer work in the battery lab in Wuxi, Spillmann said. Samples from the lab “can be evaluated within five minutes, speeding up innovation cycles in the industry”.
The first trials with Chinese and European customers are already scheduled at the lab, Bühler said.
