Treofan, the upcoming German Battery separator company has won its first major supply contract for its TreoPore microporous separator film.
The customer is an unnamed Chinese manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries make for electric buses.
The contract marks the first large-scale entry of a European separator manufacturer into this market, which has been dominated by Japanese producers.
The contract is fixed until the end of 2017, but includes a declaration of intent for the quantity of film supplied to continuously increase, with the goal of it reaching 28 million square meters annually in 2020.
This is roughly equivalent to the area of separator film needed for 50,000 standard battery packs, each containing 56kWh of energy.
“The biaxial stretching of our film ensures very even mechanical and electrical properties, significantly improving operational reliability and battery performance,” according to Dr. Franz Josef Kruger, Head of the Treopore Business Unit at Treofan.
“And thanks to our innovative extrusion process, we can combine all required properties in a single-layer separator film – with the corresponding gains in efficiency.”