Sakuu Company (earlier put up) has efficiently and constantly 3D-printed totally practical high-performance batteries in customized styles and sizes since December 2022. These batteries have been printed as patterned cells containing patterned openings for thermal administration, in a totally dry course of, at Sakuu’s Silicon Valley battery pilot line facility.
This marks a first-of-its-kind manufacturing achievement and is a vital step in the direction of Sakuu’s deliberate commercial-scale manufacturing of next-generation SwiftPrint batteries, together with solid-state batteries, from its Kavian platform in gigafactories worldwide, the corporate mentioned.
Our improvement exhibits that the Kavian platform can allow commercial-scale, sustainable manufacturing of a variety of battery applied sciences from lithium-ion to lithium metallic to even solid-state batteries—whereas conventional strategies of superior cell manufacturing regularly run into core impediments that forestall mass-scale manufacturing.
Additional, our printing course of can permit for substantial positive aspects in vitality density for a accomplished battery. Lastly, our platform can customise the shape issue of the battery—whereby the battery itself can turn into a part of product design by way of custom-made styles and sizes. It is a profound second with monumental implications for superior battery manufacturing.
—Karl Littau, Chief Know-how Officer at Sakuu
Sakuu has invented a totally industrialized course of for printing batteries utilizing a proprietary multi-material, multi-layer method in a parallel and dry course of, as an alternative of sluggish layer-on-layer printing or screen-printing—inherently moist processes that require important vitality to take away undesirable solvents and are prone to poor printing high quality and unreliable manufacturing.
The Sakuu invention can ship low-cost high-speed manufacturing functionality coupled with flexibility in form and type, whereas additionally delivering batteries in core classes that matter most to shoppers and clients alike.
For instance, Sakuu’s first printed batteries have demonstrated profitable biking efficiency at C/5, IC present charges, and expectations are to attain excessive vitality density at 800–1000 Wh/L.
Using proprietary lithium metallic battery chemistry, Sakuu’s printing course of begins with uncooked materials and ends with a ready-to-use patterned battery. The achievement of patterned battery printing permits a more practical use of battery cell quantity with new pathways in thermal dynamic regulation. This enables
integration of fixturing, sensors, and thermal transport pathways,
in addition to regulation by way of the patterned design—particularly when skinny sub-cell battery constructions are stacked with similar in alignment.
Sakuu’s Kavian platform shall be offered to different battery producers in addition to main automotive, e-mobility, and aerospace producers. These looking for to mass-produce batteries can shorten provide chain and achieve key cell efficiency and security attributes, in addition to inherent materials and vitality financial savings, and sustainability advantages for max product design innovation.
As well as, Sakuu plans on licensing its personal battery chemistries, each
Li-metal and solid-state, to be produced with both conventional roll-to-roll manufacturing or in gigafactories using Kavian manufacturing.