High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

As the battery manufacturing becomes increasingly competitive, AMB’s Powder to Electrode dry coating technology offers a crucial path forward. This presentation explores engineering challenges and solutions required to commercialize dry electrode production. Backed by performance data and superior economics, we demonstrate how this technology justifies industry-wide adoption. This session delivers insights for OEMs, battery manufacturers, investors, and ecosystem newcomers aiming to scale production while aggressively reducing costs and environmental impact.

UniverCell’s CEO Stefan Permien will share the company’s experience developing a high-energy-density 21700 cell and scaling its manufacturing capabilities in Germany. The cell combines a tabless architecture with a lightweight housing, achieving a nominal capacity of 6 Ah and gravimetric energy density of >330 Wh/kg. Stefan will also discuss UniverCell’s ongoing development of dry-coated electrodes, including the opportunities and practical considerations involved in bringing this technology toward industrial production.

Electrochemistry Foundry (ECF), a new nonprofit in Hayward, California, accelerates battery commercialization by providing industry-grade pilot production, cell design, and supply-chain support. In this session, we share strategies for rapidly standing up a pilot line, implementing an R&D-first manufacturing execution system (MES), and maintaining quality across varied chemistries and form factors. Learn how startups, cellmakers, and end users can all benefit from partnering with ECF.

Gigafactories generate vast amounts of engineering, manufacturing, quality, and enterprise data, yet much of it remains disconnected. This presentation explores the practical applications of AI that connect these data sources to create meaningful factory context and support faster, better-informed decisions. Examples include golden batch analysis, predictive maintenance, and engineering change assessment. The focus is on how AI-powered digital tools can combine data across traditionally separate systems to help teams understand what is happening on the factory floor, identify relationships and root causes, and determine what to do next.

In the 2026 edition, we discussed that aerospace, defense, and performance programs offer value that cannot be measured purely through gigafactory-scale economics. This presentation revisits that thesis using a further year of direct market evidence, examining how changing investment conditions, supply-chain priorities, technology maturity, and customer procurement behavior are reshaping the commercial opportunity for specialist battery manufacturers and technology providers.

To address growing safety demands for high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries, Arkema developed iPlus, a thin and tunable integrated protective layer of 2-15 µm that electrically isolates electrodes during mechanical or thermal abuse, preventing hard internal shorts and thermal runaway without compromising performance. Roll-to-roll 2 Ah and 10 Ah pouch cells having iPlus successfully passed nail penetration tests with no fire or thermal runaway, demonstrating scalable, manufacturable, and highly effective safety enhancement. Thermal runaway prevention mechanism, integrated protective layer for ultimate safety (iPlus) and suitable abuse testing, will also be covered.

Battery design engineers are challenged to simultaneously improve energy density, performance, safety, and cost. This presentation examines how advanced materials can help overcome these competing requirements through improved thermal propagation resistance and optimized battery venting. Topics include compression-tuned thermal barriers that maintain protection under mechanical load and integrated venting technologies that combine pressure equalization, thermal runaway gas evacuation, and effective moisture management. Case studies will demonstrate how these approaches support safer, higher-performing battery systems.

Standard generative AI methods face critical limitations in electrode design, often producing "hallucinations" due to a lack of physical constraints. We address this gap by coupling 3D-resolved generative models with physics-based simulations to ensure physically viable wet-processed electrode designs. Interfacing this approach with our pre-existing ARTISTIC modeling framework lays the foundation to also tackle dry processing and recycled materials. This synergy is designed to accelerate manufacturing optimization and pilot-line scale-up.

Lithium-ion battery deployment is increasing demand for critical minerals and materials, particularly lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite. We expanded Argonne National Laboratory’s R&D GREET model to quantify stage-resolved and life-cycle resource utilization efficiency (RUE) across eleven commercial technology routes. Lithium RUE ranges from 26% to 72%, cobalt RUE is approximately 65%, nickel ranges from 60% to 86%, and natural and synthetic graphite achieve approximately 35% and 71%, respectively. Concentration and primary extraction are major drivers of RUE, while refining can also limit efficiency. The analysis identifies engineering and R&D opportunities to improve resource efficiency.

AI is transforming our daily work and the battery industry is no exception. In R&D, it can predict new materials and combinations and can also optimize cell and battery designs. In production, it can drive efficiency through predictive maintenance and real-time control. Vertical integration will be key to success, providing end-to-end data access and ownership.