During this 4-year project, GIGAGREEN consortium will drive the next wave of electrode and cell component processing techniques of the 3b generation Li-ion cell manufacturing industry.
CETIM, as a technological partner, will develop a Digital Twin of the new battery manufacturing processes and, in addition, will participate in the development of a digital data platform.
GIGAGREEN is a Horizon Europe project recently granted by the European Commission and comprised by an international consortium of 16 partners.
Nowadays, lithium-ion batteries global demand is 184 GWh and it is expected to increase 14-fold by 2030. Therefore, it’s necessary to ensure sustainable, safe, flexible and profitable industrial production while offering cutting-edge cells. In this sense, the EU has established an ambitious industrial objective to make Europe a strategic world leader in the value chain of lithium-ion batteries with the idea of promoting a sustainable and innovative industry.
Promotion towards new manufacturing techniques for 3B generation Li-ion cells with an integrated consortium throughout the value chain
In this context, the GIGAGREEN project arises, which will develop new manufacturing processes for cell components and electrodes, seeking the minimum environmental impact and energy consumption. To this end, cells will be designed that facilitate reuse and disassembly and increase the profitability and safety of processes and products, as well as high-performance technologies that can be easily scaled and automated.
Currently, manufacture of conventional Li-ion cell electrodes requires processing that will not be feasible in the near future. Therefore, GIGAGREEN focuses on manufacturing battery components through new wet and dry processing routes. In addition, the feasibility of various solvent-free electrode processes will also be explored and tested.
In this sense, and aligned with the BATTERY 2030+ roadmap and EU recycling regulations, GIGAGREEN will promote new recycling concepts, such as reconditioning or reuse of electrodes and electrolytes, thus overcoming the challenges of Li-on battery recycling.
GIGAGREEN consortium covers the entire value chain of battery manufacturing. Comprised by 16 partners from 6 Member States (Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal) and 2 additional countries (Norway and United Kingdom) it involves from material developers (Johnson Matthey, Arlanxeo, Alphanov, Nanomakers, Solvionic) to cell manufacturers ((Leclanché), service and machinery providers (Manz Italia, ABEE, Sustainable Innovations, INEGI Porto) and multidisciplinary technological partners CETIM Centro Tecnológico, SINTEF, CIC energiGUNE, Universidad de Parma, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Universidad Politécnica de Turín – leader).
CETIM: development of Digital Twins for the optimization of the manufacturing process
CETIM, thanks to the combination of our knowledge in the field of electrochemistry and batteries and our expertise in digital systems, we are the leading technological partner of the Digital Twin task. Our mission will be to develop, test and optimize a Digital Twin model that integrates the new battery manufacturing processes under the wet processing route, so that the industrial process can be monitored and optimized in order to, through the simulation of different scenarios, be able to perform an optimal industrial scaling of the battery production. We will also participate in the development of a digital data platformthat will serve as a database for developers, in order to serve as a basis for environmental and cost analysis tasks. In addition, CETIM will collaborate with the other partners in management tasks and in dissemination, communication and exploitation activities.
Thus, through the use of the Digital Twin developed by CETIM, important improvements will be achieved in the new manufacturing processes of the GIGAGREEN project, such as: greater productivity, reduction of the carbon footprint, improvement in the reliability of the products obtained and an increase in the flexibility of the processes that will allow rapid adaptation to future innovations in the field of battery materials, helping to create more sustainable Giga-factories.
In this way and driven by the need to obtain processes that adapt to the needs of the future Giga-factories in the EU, GIGAGREEN intends to complete the project with a set of innovative materials (binders, electrolytes, separators, cathode and anode active materials, etc.), adapted to innovative wet and dry electrode processing techniques, which motivate the generation of Design-to-Factory routes and a data-based Digital Twin.