Opportunities for Real‐Time Process Control of Electrode Properties in Lithium‐Ion Battery Manufacturing

Lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) have an important role in the shift required to achieve a global net‐zero carbon target of 2050. Electrode manufacture is amongst the most expensive steps of the LIB manufacturing process and, despite its apparent maturity, optimized manufacturing conditions are arrived at by largely trial and error. Currently, LIB manufacturing plants are typically controlled to follow the fixed “recipe,” which is often obtained by trial and error, but may be suboptimal. Regulating the process as a whole to conform to the set conditions is not widespread. Inspired by control approaches used in other film and sheet processes, we discuss opportunities for implementing real‐time process control of electrode‐related products, which has the potential to reduce the electrode manufacturing cost, CO 2 emissions, usage of resources by increases in process yield, and throughput. We highlight the challenges and significant opportunities of implementing real‐time process control in LIB electrode production lines.