Battery Manufacturing Applications – PerMix UK

Powering the Future Through Precision Mixing

In the race to build faster, better, more energy-dense batteries, many companies focus their effort on chemistries, cell architecture, or novel anodes and cathodes. Too often, the humble step of mixing electrode slurries, dispersing powders, and integrating additives is an overlooked bottleneck.

Poor mixing leads to non-uniform particle dispersion, agglomerates, voids, and inconsistencies that propagate into coating defects, capacity fade, and reduced yield. In contrast, optimal mixing can improve throughput, reduce waste, and increase cell performance.

This is why PerMix is investing heavily in its “Applications: Battery” section — to show battery makers that mixing is not just a side job but a core process lever. We understand that in the UK and Europe, scaling gigafactories demands not just “a mixer” but mixing systems tailored for battery chemistries, scale, and quality.

The Challenges in Battery Slurries & Pastes

Battery electrode slurries (for anodes or cathodes) have extremely demanding properties. Here are the chief pain points:

• High solids loading / high viscosity: To maximise energy density, manufacturers push higher proportions of active material and conductive additives, making the mixture more viscous and difficult to stir.
• Delicate particles / shear sensitivity: Many active materials are mechanically fragile; too much shear damages particles or degrades morphology, hurting performance.
• Agglomeration & deagglomeration: Ensuring that binder, conductive carbon, and active particles are disaggregated but not over-milled is a tricky balance.
• Air / gas entrapment & degassing: Entrapped bubbles can cause coating defects or local cell failure. Vacuum or degassing mixing is often required.
• Temperature control & heat generation: Mixing at high viscosity can generate heat; temperature must be controlled to avoid binder or solvent degradation.
• Cleaning / cross-contamination: Especially when switching chemistries, mixers must be easy to clean or equipped with CIP systems.
• Scalability / reproducibility: A recipe that works at small pilot scale might fail at full scale unless the mixer design, geometry, and shear profiles are carefully matched.

Where Mixing Interfaces the Battery Process Flow

Mixing touches multiple steps throughout battery production:

• Slurry preparation (anode, cathode): Active material, conductive filler, binder, and solvent are blended into a uniform slurry.
• Additive incorporation / surface modifiers / dopants: Ultra-small additions of nano or conductive materials require controlled dispersion.
• Electrolyte mixing: Mixing solvents, salts, and additives for electrolytes demands high precision and contamination control.
• Precursor / dry mixing for solid-state or hybrid electrodes: Some next-generation battery architectures require dry mixing steps before pressing or sintering.
• Coating / downstream effects: A poorly mixed slurry leads to non-uniform coating, delamination, or poor adhesion.
• Post-mixing rest and stabilisation: Proper mixing can stabilise dispersion and prevent settling during rest periods.

Mixer Types, Trade-offs, and Choosing the Right Tool

No “one size fits all” solution exists — different mixers suit different chemistries, scales, and constraints.

Recent studies show that using intensive mixers can reduce a planetary mixer’s four-hour mixing time to about two hours, saving energy and improving dispersion. Continuous twin-screw systems, meanwhile, are emerging for gigafactory-scale production to ensure uniform quality and reproducibility.

What PerMix Brings: Design, Advantage & Support

Engineering Design

• Precision seals and bearings engineered for abrasive, dense slurries, reducing maintenance and preventing contamination.
• Modular mixing zones that allow low-shear wet-out and high-shear dispersion within one vessel.
• Vacuum / degassing capability to eliminate bubbles and micro-voids.
• Heating & cooling jackets for tight temperature control during high-energy mixing.
• Robust materials of construction such as stainless steel, Hardox, Hastelloy, and titanium for corrosion and abrasion resistance.
• Scalable geometries ensuring laboratory success transfers directly to production scale.
• PLC / HMI control systems with torque, temperature, and viscosity feedback for data-driven process optimisation.
• CIP (Clean-in-Place) readiness for rapid changeovers between chemistries.

How We Address the Core Challenges

• High viscosity / solids loading: Custom impeller geometry maintains flow without over-shear.
• Agglomeration control: Staged wet-out followed by controlled shear guarantees full dispersion.
• Gas entrapment: Integrated vacuum systems remove microbubbles before coating.
• Thermal management: Real-time temperature monitoring ensures binder and solvent integrity.
• Scalability: Identical flow patterns from pilot to production scale guarantee consistency.

Example Result

A battery manufacturer increased throughput by 30% after adopting a PerMix dual-motion mixer. Mixing time was cut from 3.5 hours to 1.8 hours, with a 25% reduction in energy consumption and fewer coating defects.

Economic & Performance Advantages

PerMix mixing systems deliver measurable improvements:

• Shorter cycle times lead to higher throughput.
• Uniform dispersion results in improved electrode quality and yield.
• Energy efficiency reduces operational costs.
• Low maintenance and CIP cleaning minimise downtime.
• Repeatability ensures consistent cell performance across batches.

When every second counts in production, efficiency and precision translate directly into competitive advantage.

FAQs & Troubleshooting

Q: Why is my slurry thicker than expected after mixing?
A: Check powder addition sequence, solvent temperature, and wet-out time. Insufficient binder dispersion can cause excessive viscosity.

Q: Why do micro-voids appear in coatings?
A: Air entrapment during mixing—use vacuum mixing and staged degassing.

Q: Can I use the same mixer for anode and cathode materials?
A: Yes, if designed with CIP or quick-clean features and minimal dead zones.

Q: Batch or continuous?
A: Batch offers flexibility; continuous offers scalability and consistent throughput. PerMix designs for both, depending on your production goals.

Partnering with PerMix

PerMix provides end-to-end mixing solutions for the battery industry — from laboratory development to full-scale gigafactory systems. Our UK engineering and service team support every stage of integration, start-up, and optimisation.

We build mixers not just for performance, but for progress. When your process demands precision, PerMix delivers.

Our Battery Manufacturing Brochure