Future Days Battery Edition recap, part 1: Trends in battery production and materials

On May 21, Malvern Panalytical hosted the Future Days: Focus on Battery virtual event, featuring a range of speakers from across industry and academia. Read on for a recap of Dr Jonas Höwedes‘ session on materials and production innovation in Europe.

Looking for the video? Watch the recording of this session and more from Future Days: Battery Edition here.

Summary and Q&A

Founded in 2020, the Fraunhofer FFB Institute is dedicated to advancing sustainable and efficient battery cell production. With facilities designed for research and a pilot production plant reaching a capacity of 7 GWh, it brings together around 200 experts to bridge the gap between academia and industry.

As demand for electric vehicles rises, Europe must expand production while reducing costs. Fraunhofer is exploring alternatives to lithium-ion, such as sodium-ion, alongside innovations like solid-state and micro batteries. Sodium-ion is particularly attractive as the cost of active materials is only 50% that of lithium-ion batteries. While sodium-ion materials such as layered oxides, polyanions, and Prussian Blue Analogs (PBA) are promising, quality assurance remains essential to ensure industrial-scale adoption. Dr. Höwedes highlighted quality assurance as a key hurdle, since these materials lack lithium’s maturity. His team focuses on detailed inspections, analyzing surface reactions during processing, and addressing water sensitivity, particularly in PBAs.

Another area where Fraunhofer focuses is on reducing the energy intensity of the battery manufacturing process. Fraunhofer reduces energy demand through localized “mini environments” in dry rooms and solvent-free dry coating processes that eliminate long drying tunnels.

For maximum efficiency in the dry coating process, the Fraunhofer team analyzes the particle size, distribution, morphology, surface structure, and overall homogeneity of the mixture of carbon black with the active material and binder. Here, automated sample analysis presents an opportunity for higher throughput, enabling Fraunhofer to industrialize production and control process stability and product quality, meeting the growing demand.

Below are some key questions and answers shared during this session.

When does a factory become a gigafactory?

 A facility is considered a gigafactory when its output exceeds 1 GWh of battery cell capacity.

Which is currently the most pressing issue facing European battery producers?

We’ve looked at a range of challenges, from manufacturing capacity to sustainability and cost. In a global marketplace, price is currently the most competitive factor for European factories.

How do cost pressures impact the transition to new materials?

Competing with a mature technology like Li-ion in cost is difficult in the beginning. It takes courage to implement a new material and production technology in a cost-competitive way. But once scaled up and matured, these technologies have the potential to become cost competitive.

How can the analytical suite keep up with evolving production technologies and processes?

It’s a continuous challenge: battery technology is evolving fast, and solutions have to adapt. One way to reduce the cost of European batteries is through the dry coating solution, which takes you from analyzing slurry to looking at how you mix the binder and analyze the powder flow.

What is the main challenge for the market entry of sodium-ion batteries?

It’s often a price discussion. For example, we saw a peak in sodium-ion batteries two years ago, when lithium carbonate prices were skyrocketing. Now they’ve come back down. This makes sodium-ion batteries a solution for flexibility in production, depending on global demand in the supply chain, but they are not yet the first choice.

Do dry coating techniques provide homogenous electrolytes that are mechanically stable?

Yes – sometimes even too much, which can make them challenging to recycle. But as they are mechanically stable, they can deliver comparable performance.

You can watch the recording of this session and more from Future Days: Battery Edition here.

Further reading

• Recap: Future Days Battery Edition 2025