Successful comeback of domestically produced lithium battery equipment

In the manufacturing process of lithium batteries, the performance of the cells depends to a large extent on the performance of the coated poles, and key indicators such as battery capacity, multiplier, safety, and cycle life are closely related to the coating technology. Therefore, the battery companies that have been in the coating equipment, especially in the choice of coating die are very demanding.

On the demand side, in recent years, with the rapid development of the lithium industry in the background, as the core components of the coating machine, the coating die market demand is also rapidly released. On the supply side, before 2015, China's coating dies head market is mainly occupied by foreign companies such as Japan's Panasonic, Japan Mitsubishi, and the United States EDI. Chinese battery companies can only purchase imported equipment, but the problem has been "erupting" one after another.

The dilemma

Many Chinese battery companies have reported that the pain points of using imported coating dies in the early days came from three main areas.

One is the wide variety of lithium batteries in China and the widely varying process requirements, foreign manufacturers usually only provide standardized coating dies, which not only take a long time to break in but sometimes even require adjustment of the process to "compromise" on the "standardization" of the imported coating dies, resulting in a significant impact on battery production. This led to a significant impact on battery production.

Secondly, foreign manufacturers had few technical maintenance staff at the time, and the coating die was not repaired promptly, which affected the battery production schedule.

Moreover, imported coating dies were expensive and easy to wear out, leading to high costs as the third pain point.

At that time, China coating dies almost "no option" to speak of, but with several Chinese enterprises "out of the box", Chinese battery companies on the coating die to see the hope of localization.

Among them, Shenzhen MANNEST is a typical representative that stands out in this complex market competition. While Chinese battery companies are deeply affected by the serious constraints of imported coating dies, with keen market insight, Shenzhen MANNEST also saw a potentially huge market in this area. So we seized the opportunity to use our "own hands" to provide targeted relief to battery companies and help break the monopoly of imported coating dies.

The "local hand" solves the "pain point of the dilemma"

Starting from localized maintenance of imported equipment, through in-depth communication with battery companies, MANNEST has gained a deep understanding of the customer's battery design characteristics, coating process requirements, etc., and has not only assisted the company in quickly solving the maintenance problems of the coating die head, but has also accumulated solid technology and rich engineering application experience itself.

For the limitations of standardized coating dies, MASTER offers customized coating dies directly to customers based on its strong R&D capabilities in a wide range of cross-disciplinary disciplines such as mechanical design, materials science, fluid mechanics, automation control technology, and software algorithms, to improve the suitability for different structures of cells. The customer is supported and maintained by local technology, increasing customer adhesion.

It is the "customized equipment + fast maintenance service" that has not only significantly reduced the break-in period for customers, lowered the cost of machine tuning, and reduced labor dependency, but also improved the yield rate of the cores; not only has it reduced the procurement cost of customers' equipment, but The continuous localization of equipment has increased the security of the customer's supply chain. MASTER has thus inadvertently become deeply involved in and led the process of replacing the core coating equipment with localized equipment, carrying the flag of localization.

Because of the "optional" domestic coating die head, lithium-ion head companies such as Ningde Time, BYD, China Innovation Aviation, and ATL have started to purchase relevant equipment from MANNEST, gradually replacing imported products.

Data from the China Battery Industry Association shows that MANNEST's high precision slit lithium battery die head will have a market share of 19%, 21%, and 26% in China from 2019 to 2021 respectively, ranking first in the industry for three consecutive years for local companies, and the market share continues to increase.

The market performance is not only proof of customers' recognition and trust in MANNEST equipment but also attracts more companies at the head of the lithium industry chain to include MANNEST from "optional" to "preferred" when choosing coating to die heads.

It is reported that in the field of power and energy storage lithium batteries, in addition to the above customers, there are also Guoxuan High-tech, Yiwei Li-energy, Honeycomb Energy, Xin Wanda, Fu Neng Technology, Ruipu Energy, Ganfeng Lithium, Tianjin Lishen, Nandu Power, Tafel New Energy, and other head battery companies outside China have established stable cooperation with MANNEST. In the field of Li-ion battery equipment manufacturing, head enterprises such as Pilot Intelligence, Putai Lai and WinHope Technology have also established stable cooperation with MASTER.

The "magic hand" to achieve "soft and hard"

In addition to the "original hand" as the original intention and cornerstone of the supply-demand cooperation, MASTER is also extremely focused on improving the market competitiveness of the overall coating solution, "hardware and software integration" this "wonderful hand The "hardware and software integration" is also in line with the new needs of battery companies.

To meet the differentiated needs of downstream vehicle companies, battery companies need to continuously improve the performance of various indicators such as high capacity, high multiplier, high safety, and high consistency of batteries, and continue to launch battery products with a wide range of characteristics.

Firstly, slit coating technology is commonly used in the power battery industry for the manufacture of battery cells, as it allows for a high precision coating on the surface of the substrate. Based on this demand, MASTER was the first to develop a slit coating die with its intellectual property in the field of lithium battery manufacturing in China and to achieve rapid downstream application.

Subsequently, MASTER developed a mass-produced high-capacity type coating die, which effectively improved the coating efficiency and battery energy density.

A high-magnification class coating dies head, can meet the demand for thin-layer coating manufacturing processes for fast-charge and fast-discharge batteries, with coatings as thin as 20g/m2 being achieved.

Safety class coating dies head, solving the problem of simultaneous coating of insulation adhesive and coating paste main material, greatly reducing the risk of positive and negative short circuits inside the battery and improving the safety performance of the battery.

double-cavity coating die heads, which significantly improve the coating uniformity of certain specific coating processes and pastes, while the coating enhances product life.

It is worth noting that semi-solid and solid-state batteries have become a very interesting battery technology development route for the industry, and master's high solids class coating die head, which can be applied to the coating of battery pastes with high solids content, reduces oven electrical energy consumption and improves paste stability and electrode consistency.

The reason why MASTER has been hailed by many battery companies as "an intelligent total solution provider in the field of coating technology of international standard", in addition to the above hardware matrix is extremely rich, in terms of software, the relevant software interconnection is also gradually becoming its depth of integration with the lithium industry "a trick The company's software interconnection is becoming a "trick" for its deep integration into the lithium industry.

At the core production site, companies need to detect parameters affecting coating performance in real-time and dispose of abnormal parameters quickly, which can be achieved by MANNEST's IoT platform based on an automatic closed-loop adjustment system.

Its new intelligent coating die head is embedded with a large number of sensors and intelligent actuators to form an automatic closed-loop adjustment system that can detect key parameters such as coating surface density, cavity pressure, and slurry mass flow online, accumulate a database of adjustment solutions and achieve precise automatic control adjustments of the overall coating process by the actuators.

At the same time, battery companies also need intelligent monitoring and management of the production process and equipment operation, such as the common, continuous monitoring of the slurry transfer screw pump and coating die head, to detect abnormalities, troubleshoot, and ensure production yields promptly.

With its IoT platform seamlessly connected to the customer's battery production equipment IoT system or traditional manufacturing execution system MES, it can transform abstract data into intuitive visual graphics through powerful data collection and analysis capabilities, thus intelligently helping the customer to monitor and manage production process parameters and equipment status, avoiding the impact on coating quality due to changes in paste, environment and other factors, while also extending equipment maintenance cycles and reduce maintenance costs.

The IoT platform has been successfully used by several downstream customers and is running steadily on the production side.

The hardware products are widely used in the field and the software platform weaves a tight monitoring and management network. The integration of hardware and software has improved the yield, quality, performance, and manufacturing efficiency of customers' cells, further helping MANNEST to consolidate its leading position in the industry and enhance the added value and market competitiveness of its business.

In addition, many leading battery companies choose MASTER because of its high technological barriers. MASTER currently has 8 invention patents, 98 utility model patents, 7 design patents, 11 software copyrights and several proprietary technologies, including the design and processing of coating dies and pads, various coating technologies (including thin-layer coating for HEV batteries, double-layer coating for high-capacity batteries, insulating gel coating to effectively improve the safety of battery cells and (including thin-layer coating technology for HEV batteries, double layer coating technology for high-capacity batteries, insulating gel coating technology to effectively improve the safety of battery cells and high solid content paste coating technology to effectively reduce production energy consumption), high precision adjustment mechanism, die constant temperature feeding technology, die adjustment algorithm, software platform, etc., making it long ranked within the first echelon of coating technology.

It is not difficult to see that the "hand" has enabled localized equipment companies to seize market opportunities and solve customer problems, while the "hand" has helped MANNEST to consolidate its leading position in the industry and improve its application level.

It is also based on solving the "neck" problem in the key links of the industry chain that MANNEST was awarded the title of the first batch of "Specialized and New" enterprises in Shenzhen. The term "Specialised, Specialised and New" refers to "specialization, refinement, specialization, and novelty", and is a way for the local government to assess and recognize enterprises with unique contributions and competitiveness, and most of the enterprises selected are leaders in their fields.

MASTER is popular in the industry, mainly because it takes import substitution as a breakthrough, constantly innovates technology, enhances "specialization and novelty" capability, and maintains an internationally leading technology level. It is reported that MASTER has been aiming at technological breakthroughs at the forefront of the industry in terms of products and technologies, and is now moving from wet coating to high solids coating and dry electrode preparation. In the future, MASTER will continue to focus closely on the actual needs and new "pain points" of its customers, pre-develop or modify relevant equipment in a targeted manner, and continuously optimize intelligent coating solutions as a whole.

On the market side, demand for coating equipment continues to be strong not only in China but also in overseas power battery manufacturing as Europe and North America become emerging incremental markets for electric vehicles. At present, Chinese coating equipment and total solutions head companies are on the rise, and companies such as MANNEST have gained the attention of many well-known overseas downstream companies, or will further stir the global pattern of the coating equipment industry.