CUSTOMCELLS® Tübingen – the latest generation of battery cell production

Following a two-year construction and start-up phase, CUSTOMCELLS® now has one of Europe’s most modern cell production lines. We are committed to the highest quality in every stage of battery cell production and are also able to offer an extremely high degree of flexibility.

Ablation

CUSTOMCELLS® Tübingen works with separate production lines for anodes and cathodes in a grey room. A laser cuts out the tab area of the fully coated electrode. This permits flexible positioning of the tabs. The approach makes it possible to make optimal use of the space and affords freedom in terms of the shape.

E-cutter

We use a fully automated electrode cutting process for the ablated electrode coils and achieve a high level of quality by using a laser. Since no cutting dies are used, there is also no mechanical impact on the material. The cut edges are inspected using microscopy in order to assess the quality of the laser cut.

Dry room

CUSTOMCELLS® Tübingen is synonymous with quality. Our dry room meets Class 6 clean room requirements. All materials are transferred from the grey room to the dry room via a vacuum oven and pre-dried.

Lamination and S-cutter

One of the electrodes – either the anode or cathode – is laminated between two separator layers in a special lamination system in order to produce the best possible separator electrode contact. This is simultaneously the preparatory step for the heat pressing. We then use a highly flexible laser for cutting out the contours of the separators together with the laminated electrode. A carbon dioxide laser is used for this stage. We take an in-line monitoring approach via video for this stage in order to guarantee the highest quality.

Heat pressing

The heat pressing stage of the series production process at CUSTOMCELLS® Tübingen involves evenly distributing the temperature throughout the entire cell stack. We heat the electrodes and ensure the long-term stability of the electrode blocks. This enables us to reduce the impedance and increase the quality of the pouch cells.

Formation

CUSTOMCELLS® Tübingen uses the latest equipment produced by its cooperation partner KeySight for the formation process. The pressure trays apply even pressure to the pouch cell during the formation process. This makes it possible to produce a homogeneous SEI layer. The pressure is continuously monitored during the formation process. The formation formula is constantly adapted to the requirements of the selected cell chemistry and materials in order to achieve the best performance for the cells.