FoFeBat - Research Production Battery Cells Germany

In short

As part of the “FoFeBat” project, a research production facility for battery cells is being built. All production steps from mixing the electrode materials to forming the cells are covered. Fraunhofer IPA is assisting the set-up of the research production facility in various areas, such as in the choice of equipment, factory planning, business process design and digitization.

In detail

The battery cell research production facility (FFB) in Münster went into operation at the end of 2019. The focus is on research into innovative manufacturing technologies for battery cells in round, pouch and prismatic formats. One of the FFB’s main objectives is to reduce the risks involved in transferring innovative cell concepts and manufacturing technologies to large-scale productions.

Key research topics include designing flexible and adaptable manufacturing systems and developing and testing digitization solutions. This should enable a changeover from inflexible production lines to modular manufacturing systems.

In addition to the work on modularizing and digitizing the entire value chain, another of FFB’s planning objectives is to reduce the impact of battery cell manufacture on the environment. This will mainly be achieved by making the buildings and production processes extremely energy- and resource-efficient, as well as by using renewable energies. To increase the proportion of energy generated on site, both energy supply and demand will be synchronized, and flexible energy measures implemented.