The "Research Production of Battery Cells" ("FoFeBat") project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, aims to establish a central research infrastructure to enable the industry to produce battery cells economically and ecologically. The Fraunhofer FFB is designed to accelerate the innovation and commercialization process of production technologies for existing and future cell formats. The focus is on gaining experience in the operation of large-scale research production in order to expand expertise and close gaps in this area.

At the beginning of the meeting, the partners and sponsors, the BMBF, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and NRW.Urban, were given an insight into the current research and development projects. In addition to the presentation of the current environmental report, which deals with sodium-ion batteries as an alternative battery technology, employees of the Fraunhofer FFB also presented the current challenges of the innovation modules. As time-limited implementation projects, the innovation modules address critical issues along the battery production process chain. A technology study was conducted beforehand to analyze which innovations are particularly relevant for battery cell production. The following innovation modules are currently being worked on: Continuous Mixing, Dry Coating, Laser Separation and Cell Finishing.

On the second day of the meeting, the agenda included a presentation of the ELLB - European Learning Lab Battery Cells by Fraunhofer FFB of the Fraunhofer FFB and an outlook on the five innovation labs of the "FFB PreFab". The labs are designed to accelerate the process from innovative idea to research and industrial application by bridging a gap on the scale of technological maturity. At the end of the meeting, the cooperation partners were given a tour of the "FFB PreFab" construction site. Parallel to this tour, the partners had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the ministry representatives at so-called "market stands", where employees presented their research and industrial projects.

For the "FoFeBat" project, Fraunhofer FFB is cooperating with the Chair of Production Engineering of E-Mobility Components (PEM) at RWTH Aachen University, Münster Electrochemical Energy Technology (MEET) at the University of Münster and Forschungszentrum Jülich. In addition, 14 other Fraunhofer Institutes are involved in the establishment of the Fraunhofer FFB Münster.