Automation technology company Comau and solid-state sodium battery developer LiNa Energy have jointly developed a concept for automating the production of solid-state sodium metal chloride battery cells. The project aims at automating LiNa Energy’s battery production. As a step towards larger-scale production, the companies want to validate the oxygen-free dry box environment.
LiNa wants to increase production capacity
Engineers from the two companies worked together to develop the environment and equipment needed to handle the components of these battery cells. This included integrating systems already available on the market, including Comau’s Racer-5 SENSITIVE ENVIRONMENTS articulated robot. The collaboration also resulted in changes to LiNa’s existing manufacturing methods to optimize process dynamics for automated cell assembly to significantly increase the production capacity of LiNa’s battery cells.
Technology to complement lithium battery
According to the company, LiNa does not see its solid-state sodium battery as a replacement for lithium-ion batteries. Rather, they complement the available battery portfolio. Sodium batteries enable cost-efficient energy storage for the integration of renewable energy in important growth markets such as India.
