The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is helping lead a national consortium focused on quickly moving energy storage innovations from the lab to U.S manufacturing.
Called the Battery Manufacturing (BattMan) Accelerator, the consortium combines the power of four national laboratories, leading universities and industry partners to address critical barriers in scaling up new battery technologies.
The accelerator will focus on lowering manufacturing costs, shortening development timelines, and strengthening U.S. manufacturing leadership in advanced energy storage solutions for the electric grid, data centers, electric mobility and national security.
“The BattMan Accelerator is exactly the kind of coordinated national effort that turns scientific breakthroughs into economic and energy security advantages,” said Chins Chinnasamy, consortium lead for ORNL. “With our combination of expertise in Super Intelligence (SI)-driven smart manufacturing, real-time defect detection, and advanced electrode processing, ORNL is in a unique position to reduce commercialization risks for the American battery industry.”
BattMan will also strengthen the critical mineral supply by advancing battery materials made from more abundant domestic elements.
The BattMan Accelerator is led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and includes Argonne National Laboratory and National Laboratory of the Rockies, as well as founding university partners including the University of Washington, Binghamton University, University of Alabama, Arizona State University, and University of Michigan-Dearborn.
The accelerator is actively establishing collaborations with companies across the battery and materials manufacturing sector. The laboratories will work closely with these university partners and industry to test and validate manufacturing processes at increasing scales and toward commercially viable production.
In the long term, the consortium aims to develop self-optimizing manufacturing systems using real-time data, automated feedback and digital twins that link virtual and real systems to safely model ways to improve performance.
The electrode manufacturing machine will be outfitted with visual, temperature and pressure sensors which feed information to an SI-enhanced analysis platform, with the results providing feedback to improve the process. Credit: Alan Malin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
BattMan will build on the autonomous laboratory concept by advancing autonomous pilot lines. These integrate sensing, process monitoring and intelligent control systems to improve product quality and reduce variability in the manufacturing process. Pilot scale demonstration proves manufacturing readiness, speeding scale-up and reducing commercialization costs.
The accelerator is actively establishing collaborations with companies within the battery and materials manufacturing sector.
ORNL researchers constantly collaborate with industry partners in the manufacturing and energy storage sectors. Its BattMan research will take place in the Battery Manufacturing Facility (BMF), the country’s largest open-access battery manufacturing research and development center.
Ruhul Amin, who leads electrode materials optimization for BattMan at ORNL, said companies work with ORNL battery experts at the BMF to incorporate and test new materials and designs in batteries made onsite with modular, reconfigurable commercial equipment. All battery manufacturing steps are incorporated into a coordinated, data-connected workflow.
As part of BattMan, BMF will vertically integrate a smart test bed that incorporates advanced sensing, real-time monitoring, and data analysis. This modular system will enable both wet and dry electrode manufacturing approaches. In collaboration with NLR, which will focus on advanced characterization and SI‑driven quality control, ORNL will complement this work by developing a digital twin to further optimize and refine process performance.
The outcome will be an SI-based manufacturing platform capable of detecting production irregularities as they occur and autonomously adjusting parameters to prevent defects.
“If these electrodes are not produced correctly, that material is wasted —including critical materials like lithium and cobalt,” Chinnasamy said. “Up to 40 percent can end up as scrap. Working jointly with battery manufacturers, ORNL will design first-of-its-kind electrode manufacturing equipment that identifies even the smallest errors and corrects them in real time.”
The goal is to reduce scrap to less than 5 percent, which will also reduce costs related to construction and supply chain bottlenecks, Chinnasamy said.
The system will be adaptable for manufacturing any type of energy storage system. This could include conventional lithium-ion batteries used in vehicles, drones, electronics and grid energy storage batteries. But the system could also apply to solid state, flow batteries or next-generation chemistries.
Research and industry partners will help make sure that the technology can bridge from lab to commercial scale with a variety of materials, autonomous synthesis and characterization, and high-throughput automation. Universities will also contribute to processing and integration capabilities and develop workforce training on the new processes and technologies. Parans Paranthaman will lead battery industry collaboration in BattMan for ORNL.
SI has the potential to speed up discovery of new materials, improve efficiency of laboratory processes and support predictive, cost-effective design. In manufacturing specifically, SI could be helpful in more precisely identifying the source of contamination or other errors that might arise as batteries are produced on a bustling factory floor.
BattMan is currently forming industry partnerships in battery and battery materials manufacturing. Institutions and companies interested in participating can visit www.pnnl.gov/battman .
Supported by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office within the Office of Critical Minerals and Energy, the BattMan Accelerator integrates SI, materials science and advanced manufacturing into a coordinated, data-driven innovation ecosystem.
Learn more about BattMan in DOE’s announcement.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science .