ME 516 Advance Manufacturing and Clean Energy Technology

Suraj Takale, Ankush Nandi

1. Overview
The proposed final project involves investigating the potential benefits of integrating 3D
printing technologies into the battery manufacturing process. This integration aims to
enhance the efficiency and accelerate the production of batteries. Currently, limitations in
the traditional manufacturing processes hinder the ability to manufacture battery
electrodes with sufficient surface area, which is crucial for producing energy and power
dense batteries. By utilizing modern 3D printing techniques, the production of complex
structured electrodes can be achieved, thus addressing the aforementioned limitations.
The project will focus on exploring the feasibility and potential of this approach in order
to optimize the battery manufacturing process.
2. Concept
The proposed concept involves exploring various structures with higher area to weight
ratio that can be fabricated using rapid prototyping techniques. **Explain more about
structures**
Various rapid prototyping techniques are currently available, such as ink jet printing,
FDM, and SLS. These methods offer advantages, such as the ability to print complex
structures. However, some of these techniques, require significant energy consumption,
which can impede mass-scale production and increase carbon footprint. Therefore, it is
important to carefully evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of each technique before
selecting one for specific applications.
3. Goals
The goal of our project is to explore battery manufacturing techniques and identify
limitations associated with current methods. Additionally, we aim to investigate the
potential of rapid prototyping techniques for mass-scale production in clean energy
manufacturing, as well as current applications of these techniques in battery
manufacturing. Through this project, we hope to gain insight into the feasibility and
efficacy of utilizing 3D printing.
4. Knowledge and Resources Needed for Project
For this project, ** explain structures knowledge and relate it to the project like geometry
of cathode or anode and battery efficiency**
Our project requires a comprehensive understanding of battery operation and current
battery manufacturing techniques, including planetary mixing, ultrasonic mixing, slurry
casting, die slot casting, calendaring, and laser slitting. We also aim to investigate the
limitations associated with these techniques. In addition, we require an in-depth
understanding of the capabilities and limitations of rapid prototyping techniques such as
Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), and Inkjet Printing.
Through this knowledge, we hope to evaluate the potential of integrating 3D printing
techniques in the battery manufacturing process to optimize production efficiency and
produce higher performance batteries.
5. References
Technology Review
Piri, H., Bi, X.T., Li, H. and Wang, H., 2020. 3D-printed fuel-cell bipolar plates for evaluating
flow-field performance. Clean Energy, 4(2), pp.142-157.
Lacey, S.D., Kirsch, D.J., Li, Y., Morgenstern, J.T., Zarket, B.C., Yao, Y., Dai, J., Garcia, L.Q.,
Liu, B., Gao, T. and Xu, S., 2018. Extrusion‐based 3D printing of hierarchically porous
advanced battery electrodes. Advanced Materials, 30(12), p.1705651. [Could not access this
one but looks interesting]
Sun, C., Liu, S., Shi, X., Lai, C., Liang, J. and Chen, Y., 2020. 3D printing nanocomposite gel-
based thick electrode enabling both high areal capacity and rate performance for lithium-ion
battery. Chemical Engineering Journal, 381, p.122641.
Pikul, J.H., Gang Zhang, H., Cho, J., Braun, P.V. and King, W.P., 2013. High-power lithium ion
microbatteries from interdigitated three-dimensional bicontinuous nanoporous electrodes. Nature
communications, 4(1), p.1732.
Hur, J.I., Smith, L.C. and Dunn, B., 2018. High areal energy density 3D lithium-ion
microbatteries. Joule, 2(6), pp.1187-1201.
Dudney, N.J., 2005. Solid-state thin-film rechargeable batteries. Materials Science and
Engineering: B, 116(3), pp.245-249.

Background
Lyu, Z., Lim, G.J., Koh, J.J., Li, Y., Ma, Y., Ding, J., Wang, J., Hu, Z., Wang, J., Chen, W. and
Chen, Y., 2021. Design and manufacture of 3D-printed batteries. Joule, 5(1), pp.89-114.
Liu, Y., Zhang, R., Wang, J. and Wang, Y., 2021. Current and future lithium-ion battery
manufacturing. IScience, 24(4), p.102332.
Elbadawi, M., Basit, A. and Gaisford, S., 2023. Energy Consumption and Carbon Footprint of
3D Printing in Pharmaceutical Manufacture. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, p.122926.
Zhang, X., Li, M., Lim, J.H., Weng, Y., Tay, Y.W.D., Pham, H. and Pham, Q.C., 2018. Large-
scale 3D printing by a team of mobile robots. Automation in Construction, 95, pp.98-106.
Hawley, W.B. and Li, J., 2019. Electrode manufacturing for lithium-ion batteries—Analysis of
current and next generation processing. Journal of Energy Storage, 25, p.100862.