5 Comments
Sep 9·edited Sep 9Liked by Dr. Jasmin Smajic

Nice summary of recent developments. I imagine that the shift toward the prismatic form factor is tied with the rising popularity of the LFP chemistry, which is more stable and has lower energy density. LFP lends itself to this form factor: https://www.lianeon.org/p/here-come-the-iron-batteries

I am curious to know if anyone out there is attempting to leverage dry manufacturing processes for LFP or LMFP batteries? Tesla seems to cracked the problem but bet the farm on the wrong chemistry. Is anyone else working on this?

Expand full comment
author

Yes, LFP is more thermally stable so you can safely make bigger cells with LFP (something that’s not so easy with NMC), and these bigger cells are usually in prismatic format. It also helps that when you pack prismatic cells together, you can pack them closely minimizing wasted since between cells (not the case with cylindrical cells for example).

On the dry processing of LFP/LMFP, several companies are actively developing it, but no one has it really working on the mass scale (despite claiming it).

Expand full comment
Sep 9Liked by Dr. Jasmin Smajic

Would is better tremendously difficult for Tesla to use the dry process already developed for NMC and switch it to LFP?

Expand full comment
author

Some learnings from NMC dry processing can likely be translated to LFP dry processing. But ultimately NMC and LFP are different materials and will behave differently when dry processed.

Expand full comment