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Sunlight and Valtria cooperate on new manufacturing plant for power batteries in Greece

Published FEBRUARY 2023  -  HIGH-TECH

 
Blog > News > Sunlight and Valtria cooperate on new manufacturing plant for power batteries in Greece

Valtria is delighted to announce that we have been awarded the contract by Sunlight for design and installation of the clean and dry room facility solution combined with the HVAC solution for the new manufacturing pilot line for Lithium-ion batteries located in Xanthi, Greece. Valtria will implement an integrated project organization dedicated to the engineering and execution of the corresponding works for building up the clean and dry room facilities, and the HVAC system for the entire pilot line building, respectively.

Growing demand for batteries requires change

 

The increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries, such as due to the rising expansion of electric drives market, is leading to an increased demand for reliable dry room technology solutions. Thereby, a constantly controlled environment represents a key requirement, in order to achieve dry climate conditions in the process plants. In this respect, larger manufacturing plants are of major interest due to benefit from scale-up economies, thus, increasing the number and production volume towards Giga-battery factories.

A key step within the process of manufacturing takes place in the specially conditioned dry room with high demand for energy, since temperature as well as humidity of large volume of the process air have to be controlled, respectively. This step is essential since pure Lithium metal is highly sensitive to moisture, meaning, any exposure to moisture may leads to reduced performance capacity and reduced product lifecycle of Lithium-ion batteries. Besides, a slight exposure to moisture could raise serious safety concerns, such as a potential risk of explosion. Hence, the anhydrous dry room represents a significant part of the infrastructure for the development and manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, regardless of the type of production facility, whether for R&D and lab-scale purposes or for large-scale production.

In this atmosphere, the battery cells are filled with the Lithium Hexafluoride electrolyte and sealed in a constantly dehumidified environment featuring moisture concentrations below 100 parts per million by volume under all circumstances. A slight overpressure is created by the dry room system, wherein no air from outside enters, once the door opens, for instance. Moreover, it is necessary to assess the installation positions for ventilation and dehumidification equipment which in turn is co-depending on several key parameters, such as the presence of working operators in the room. For example, by means of breathing and evaporation through skin, the human factor is considered as a key parameter to affect the room conditions. Further key parameters for the design of the dry room are the volume of the room, the allowable moisture concentration, the amount of moisture released from the materials entering the room, and the amount of heat released from potential electric loads derived from specific equipment present in the room.

However, all potential influence factors need to be considered, in order to achieve the desired constant dehumidified room climate conditions. Valtria is steadily specializing in this integration service, i.e., in design, configuration, and installation of dry room systems for battery cell production. Also, Valtria is able to set up dry room systems in existing infrastructures, in case the customer is not planning new construction project for battery cell manufacturing process.

This is a significant contract award and a crucial milestone for Valtria. With regard to the global demand for sustainable battery production and use, and particularly considering battery technology a strategic part of Europe’s clean and digital transition, this project allows Valtria a platform for further growth, whilst providing strong expertise to a key enabling technology, essential to the automotive sector’s competitiveness. Furthermore, this contract award establishes Valtria as an international industry leader of mid-scale dry room architectural projects.

"We are looking forward to realizing a successful solution and establishing a trustworthy relationship of continuity between Valtria and Sunlight”.

 

AUTOR / AUTHOR:
Dr.-Ing. Dureid Qazzazie
Sales Manager Schweiz

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