Blackstone Technology will increase manufacturing capacity tenfold to 500 MWh per annum by 2022 for Li-ion batteries, which contain 3D-printed battery electrodes, at Blackstone’s Döbeln site in Saxony.

The company recently signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Triathlon Batteries GmbH, the largest German manufacturer of battery systems for industrial trucks, to supply 3D printed battery cells with several 100MWh per year. Triathlon Batteries clearly sees the advantages of using Blackstone’s technology for their products and the wider market. In addition, there are further LIOs with customers spanning marine applications, e-motorcycles, e-commercial vehicles and e-buses, which in total have a combined value of approx. EUR 184 million.

The benefit of using Blackstone Technology, is that it can produce batteries that optimally fill the installation spaces of industrial vehicles. These include for instance modern forklifts. In the future, the old installation space standards, also known as battery troughs, will be used less and less in vehicle design. These new adapted battery formats that Blackstone Technology will provide through its proprietary production process, will help vehicle designers optimise the space used and remove the need for battery troughs.

However, it is not only the battery dimensions that are flexible. The desired energy density, thickness of the battery cells and charging capabilities, can all be optimised depending on the application, by using Blackstone Technology’s 3D-printing proprietary process. This process, known as Blackstone Pre-Life-Technology©, will offer customers levels of flexibility in vehicle design that were previously unimaginable.

Today, standardised and static cell and battery designs often limit the device or electric car being powered. However, by Blackstone’s own 3D-printing technology, batteries can be manufactured in almost any shape and size, which not only gives more room for design freedom, but also helps to make optimum use of the available installation space, plus it is very economical. Therefore, in the future, battery cells will again adapt to the ergonomic and practical shape of the products.