The Role of Pilot Lines in Bridging the Gap Between Fundamental Research and Industrial Production for Lithium‐Ion Battery Cells Relevant to Sustainable Electromobility: A Review

Despite intensive research activities on lithium‐ion technology, particularly in the past five decades, the technological background for automotive lithium‐ion battery mass production in Europe is rather young and not yet ready to meet requirements of automobile manufacturers. In light of the strong increase in electromobility, bridging this gap between fundamental research and industrial production is mandatory to keep the value chain of automobile manufacture in European countries. Challenges in know‐how transfer from lab scale to industry scale arise from different product configurations and objectives. Lab scale focuses primarily on material development and screening, utilizes small‐sized half‐cell or single‐layered designs with one‐side‐coated electrodes, and applies manually operated, discontinuous equipment, whereas industry focuses on optimized trade‐offs between throughput, quality, and costs. Market‐relevant cells contain usually double‐side‐coated electrodes with comparatively higher areal capacities, assembled into multilayered configurations. Mass production is conducted through automated, continuous processes including roll‐to‐roll manufacturing and consecutive pick‐and‐place operations. Inevitably, standard laboratory conditions do not allow for prediction of either optimized mass‐production process parameters nor physicochemical characteristics of final products. Hence, this Review aims to identify challenges in transferring lab‐scale results to industry with special focus on pilot lines as intermediate step between the different technological levels.