Integration of Electrode Markings into the Manufacturing Process of Lithium-Ion Battery Cells for Tracking and Tracing Applications

One of the major challenges of battery cell manufacturing is the reduction of production costs. Production defects and manufacturing inaccuracies, combined with high value streams, cause cost-intensive scrap rates. Conventional batch tracing is insufficient to detect rejects at an early stage, since the quality-critical intermediate products are not considered in a differentiated manner. To address this deficiency, tracking and tracing approaches in battery cell production are becoming increasingly popular. To obtain sufficient resolutions of the production data, the allocation of process and product data must be performed at the electrode sheet level. An interface is required for this, which can be realized by marking the individual electrodes. This paper investigates the integration of two well-known marking technologies: laser and ink marking. Integrating these marking technologies requires the consideration of physical boundary conditions in the process chain. For this purpose, the necessary investigations are presented in a structured manner to ensure that the marking does not have a negative influence on the process chain and vice versa. A pilot production line is used as an example to demonstrate the necessary tests for the integration of laser or ink markings.