Coating and Drying Equipment for UKBIC Flexible Industrialisation Line (FIL)

This is a contract award notice Description of the original requirement below: The UKBIC Flexible Industrialisation Line is designed to allow staged scale-up of electrode manufacture from laboratory scale through to GWh scale on UKBIC’s existing high-volume electrode lines. The project will be phased and in the first phase equipment will be purchased to allow scale-up of electrode processes from the Flexible Industrialisation Line to UKBIC’s high-volume electrode lines. This will incorporate mixing process compatible with UKBIC’s mainline process and coating and drying equipment which will take batches of slurry and convert them onto anode and cathode foils. Subsequent equipment will incorporate next generation electrode manufacturing processes, so solutions covering both scenarios are encouraged. This new electrode capability will be supplemented by flexible equipment to Calender and slit the electrode reels allowing them to be converted into cells using the main UKBIC cylindrical and pouch cell assembly lines, or other flexible cell manufacturing equipment that may be installed during a later phase. Coating and Drying Equipment is required to allow UKBIC to produce Anode and Cathode electrodes for use on its in-house cell assembly lines. The Coating & Drying equipment will be installed in a new internal Clean Room facility to UKBIC. UKBIC currently have Coating and Drying equipment in its Volume Industrialisation Line allowing for a segregated Coating of Anode and Cathode slurries, however the size of the equipment is designed for Electrode Material at high levels of maturity and/or at mass production scale. UKBIC is looking to install smaller equipment to support customers at a lower maturity level and allow for a wider range of chemistries. A flexible and modular solution is required to enable UKBIC to be less restricted in its Process Equipment offering and for a more Research and Development focused approach to Coating & Drying albeit on a scale larger than lab-based systems. Further to the general equipment requirement it necessary to offer a solvent/abatement system internal/external to the UKBIC facility to allow for safe solvent emission control and management from the drying process.