Dry method diaphragm coating machine
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of material processing equipment, in particular to a dry-method diaphragm coating machine.
Background
The separator is an essential component of the battery. In recent years, due to the large-scale application of lithium ion batteries, particularly power batteries, higher requirements are put forward on the energy density, the cycle performance, the charge-discharge current density and the safety performance of the batteries; the improvement of the performance of the membrane plays a crucial role in improving the overall performance of the battery. In lithium batteries, wet-process combined coating processes have become an important development direction for separators; coating organic matters such as oxide ceramic, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and aramid fiber on the surface of the polyolefin diaphragm can obviously improve the thermal shrinkage performance of the diaphragm, the adhesion with positive and negative electrode active substances and the electrolyte wettability. Therefore, the coated separator can significantly improve cycle performance, safety performance, and storage performance of a lithium battery.
The quality of the separator coating directly affects the overall performance of the final cell. At present, the coating processes such as dimple coating, dip coating and spin coating are mainly adopted for coating the diaphragm. The above processes are no exception, and a wet coating process is adopted, that is, a liquid coating slurry is transferred to a diaphragm surface layer by a certain method, and then the liquid coating slurry is solidified through a drying process to form a coating on the surface of the diaphragm. On the one hand, however, wet coaters require a desolventizing drying process, usually have a long oven section, the overall size of the equipment is large, and the coating rate is limited; on the other hand, the wet coating process is complex, and coating defects such as pinholes, uneven stripe coating, shrinkage cavities, orange peels and the like are easily caused by adopting a liquid slurry method in the coating and drying processes, so that the coating quality and the production efficiency are limited to a certain extent. And the precise control of the coating thickness is also quite difficult, and the consistency of the product is difficult to further promote.
Disclosure of Invention
The embodiment of the invention provides a dry-method diaphragm coating machine, which realizes diaphragm coating by taking dry powder as a coating material by utilizing the actions of physical adsorption and plasma deposition, does not contain a liquid solvent in the process, avoids various problems in a wet-method coating process, optimizes and simplifies the structure of the coating machine, and obtains a coating diaphragm with better consistency.
To this end, an embodiment of the present invention provides a dry method separator coater, including: the device comprises a laser driving unit, a diaphragm unreeling unit, a diaphragm preheating oven flattening unit, a dry coating unit and a diaphragm reeling unit;
the membrane unwinding unit automatically unwinds the membrane, discharges a membrane base membrane to be coated, preheats and flattens the membrane base membrane through the membrane preheating oven flattening unit, and sends the membrane base membrane to the dry coating unit; the laser driving unit generates laser, the coating material powder in the dry coating unit is ionized, plasma charged particles are generated and deposited on the diaphragm base film, and the diaphragm coated with the dry powder material is obtained; and the coated diaphragm is rolled by a diaphragm rolling unit to form a coated diaphragm product.
Preferably, the dry coating unit includes: the device comprises a laser incidence window, a laser line focusing mirror, a powder circulating die cavity and a plasma sputtering coating module;
the laser driving unit generates laser which enters the dry coating unit through the laser incidence window, is reflected by the laser line focusing mirror, enters the powder circulating die cavity through the inlet of the powder circulating die cavity, is focused at the laser line focus in the powder circulating die cavity, ionizes coating material powder in the powder circulating die cavity to form plasma, is diffused to the outside of the powder circulating die cavity through the outlet of the powder circulating die cavity, and is deposited on the diaphragm base film under the selective guidance of the plasma sputtering coating module.
Further preferably, the plasma sputter coating module includes: a laser baffle and a coating back roll;
wherein the coating backing roll is in a deposition region in a plasma divergence region; the laser baffle shields the area except the deposition area in the plasma divergence area;
the coating back rollers are arranged in parallel in one group or multiple groups, and the group number of the coating back rollers in the dry-method diaphragm coating machine is set according to the width of the single group of coating back rollers and the width of the diaphragm base film to be coated.
Further preferably, the coating material powder in the powder circulation die cavity is sprayed from a powder supply pipeline, and a flowing powder layer flowing along with the gas in the powder circulation die cavity;
the coating material powder is excited by laser to have adsorption activity, and forms plasma through plasma ionization, so that the coating on the diaphragm base film is realized under the combined action of physical adsorption and plasma deposition.
Further preferably, the thickness of the coating layer on the coated diaphragm product is adjusted by adjusting the spraying flow of the coating material powder, the power of laser, and the distance between the laser line focus and the diaphragm base film to be coated on the coating back roller.
Preferably, the dry coating units are 1 or more groups;
and a plurality of groups of dry coating units are sequentially connected in series and discharged for double-sided and/or multi-layer coating.
Preferably, the laser is a continuous laser or a pulse laser;
when the laser is pulse laser, the repetition frequency of the pulse laser is 1-1000000Hz; the single pulse energy is 1-100000mJ; pulse duration of 10 -6 -10 -15 And second.
Preferably, the repetition frequency of the pulse laser is 10-100000Hz; the single pulse energy is 10-1000mJ; pulse duration of 10 -9 -10 -15 And seconds.
Preferably, the dry-method membrane coater is used for preparing membranes of primary batteries, secondary batteries and fuel cells;
wherein the secondary battery includes: liquid, solid-liquid mixed or all solid lithium batteries, sodium batteries, lithium sulfur batteries, and lithium air batteries.
Preferably, the coating material powder suitable for the dry method diaphragm coater includes: mixing one or more of ceramic powder, organic powder, solid electrolyte powder and hydroxide powder;
the coating material powder is also mixed with solid binder powder, and the solid binder powder accounts for 0-30wt% of the total mass of the coating material powder.
According to the dry-method diaphragm coating machine provided by the embodiment of the invention, the diaphragm is automatically unreeled through the diaphragm unreeling unit, the diaphragm base film to be coated is discharged, and the diaphragm base film is preheated and flattened through the diaphragm preheating oven flattening unit and is sent to the dry-method coating unit; the laser driving unit generates laser, coating material powder in the dry coating unit is ionized, and coating on the diaphragm base film by taking dry powder as a coating material is realized by utilizing the actions of physical adsorption and plasma deposition, so that the diaphragm coated with the dry powder material is obtained; and the coated diaphragm is rolled by a diaphragm rolling unit to form a coated diaphragm product. The dry-method diaphragm coating machine provided by the invention does not use a liquid solvent in the process, avoids various problems existing in a wet-method coating process, optimizes and simplifies the structure of the coating machine, obtains a coating diaphragm with better consistency, and has the advantages of simple process, uniform coating, high coating thickness precision and high coating production efficiency.
Drawings
The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention are further described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.
Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a dry-method membrane coater provided by an embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a dry coating unit provided in an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a coating principle provided by an embodiment of the invention.
Detailed Description
The invention is further illustrated by the following figures and specific examples, but it will be understood that these examples are given solely for the purpose of illustration and are not to be construed as limiting the invention in any way, i.e., not as limiting the scope of the invention.
The main structure of the dry-method membrane coating machine provided by the invention is shown in figure 1, and the dry-method membrane coating machine comprises the following components: the device comprises a laser driving unit 1, a diaphragm unreeling unit 2, a diaphragm preheating oven flattening unit 3, a dry coating unit 4 and a diaphragm reeling unit 5;
the membrane unreeling unit 2 automatically unreels the membrane, releases a membrane base membrane to be coated, preheats and flattens the membrane base membrane through the membrane preheating oven flattening unit 3, and sends the membrane base membrane to the dry coating unit 4; the laser driving unit 1 generates laser, ionizes the coating material powder in the dry coating unit 4, generates plasma charged particles, and deposits the plasma charged particles on the diaphragm base film to obtain the diaphragm coated with the dry powder material. And the coated diaphragm is rolled by a diaphragm rolling unit 5 to form a coated diaphragm product.
The membrane unreeling unit 2, the membrane preheating oven flattening unit 3 and the membrane reeling unit 5 are the same as corresponding parts of the existing membrane coating equipment, and are not described again. The laser driving unit 1 and the dry coating unit 4 are mainly described. The laser generated by the laser driving unit 1 interacts with the coating material powder in the dry coating unit 4, so that the coating material powder is excited by the laser to have adsorption activity, and plasma is formed through plasma ionization, and coating on the diaphragm base film is realized under the combined action of physical adsorption and plasma deposition.
The laser driving unit 1 may include a laser generating module, a laser transmitting module, and a laser focusing module. The laser transmission module can specifically comprise optical elements such as an optical fiber, a coated reflecting mirror and the like, and a corresponding vacuum pipeline.
The laser light emitted by the laser driving unit 1 is continuous laser light or pulse laser light, and preferably pulse laser light. The repetition frequency of the pulse laser is 1-1000000Hz; preferably 10-100000Hz. The single pulse energy of the pulse laser is 1-100000mJ; preferably 10-10000mJ; more preferably 10-1000mJ. In the present embodiment, the pulse width of the pulsed laser can be in the order of microseconds, nanoseconds, picoseconds, and femtoseconds, and the pulse duration is 10 -6 -10 -15 Second, preferably 10 -9 -10 -15 And seconds.
The specific structure of the dry coating unit 4 is shown in fig. 2, and includes: a laser incidence window 41, a laser line focusing mirror 42, a powder circulating die cavity 43 and a plasma sputtering coating module.
The laser driving unit 1 generates laser (shown by a solid arrow on the left side in fig. 2) and enters the dry coating unit 4 through the laser incidence window 41, is reflected by the laser line focusing mirror 42, enters the powder circulating cavity 43 through the powder circulating cavity inlet 431, is focused at a laser line focus (a dotted line at the intersection position of the solid arrow and the oblique arrow in fig. 2) in the powder circulating cavity 43, ionizes coating material powder in the powder circulating cavity 43 to form plasma, and is diffused to the outside of the powder circulating cavity through the powder circulating cavity outlet 432, and the plasma sputtering coating module deposited on the diaphragm base film under the selective guidance of the plasma sputtering coating module comprises: a laser shutter 44 and a coating backing roll 45. Wherein the coating backing roll 45 is in the deposition region in the plasma divergent region; the laser shutter 44 shields the plasma divergence region except for the deposition region. This selectively directs the divergence of the plasma so that the coating material powder is deposited on the diaphragm base film conveyed by the coating back roller 45.
In the powder circulation die cavity 43, the coating material powder is sprayed in from the powder supply pipeline 433 of the powder circulation die cavity 43, and forms a flowing powder layer in the powder circulation die cavity 43 along with the gas flow; the coating material powder ionizes the powder through a strong electric field to form plasma in a region with stronger laser electric field intensity (mainly at a laser line focus and a nearby position), and the plasma is diffused into a plasma halo area by taking the laser line focus as a cylindrical symmetry axis; the plasma halo region contains a large number of active particles such as electrons, charged ions, atoms, molecules and free radicals in an excited state, and also contains a large number of particles in a molten state; the particles are dispersed outwards in a cylindrical cone-shaped spatial distribution and are deposited on the diaphragm base film. That is to say the coating is formed predominantly by deposition; meanwhile, in the region of the powder circulation cavity 43 where the laser intensity is weak, the laser also excites the dry powder to make it have adsorption activity, so that it can be adsorbed on the surface of the diaphragm substrate.
In the plasma deposition process, the coating material powder is ionized to form plasma, and the charged particles in the plasma further excite the substrate surface thin layer (molecule/atomic layer) of the diaphragm-based film. The charged ions in the non-equilibrium plasma can have a plasma temperature of keV magnitude, sufficient energy promotes the breakage of chemical bonds in a thin layer on the surface of a base material of the diaphragm base film, and the energy of a local system is reduced by forming new bonds.
The thickness of the coating layer on the coated diaphragm product can be adjusted by adjusting the spraying flow of the coating material powder, the laser power and the distance between the laser line focus and the diaphragm base film to be coated on the coating back roller. The coating thickness of the dry-method diaphragm coating machine can be adjusted within the range of 0.05-10um, and the controllable adjustment precision of the coating thickness can reach below 0.05 um.
In a specific embodiment, the effective coating base film width of each dry coating unit 4 is 100mm to 2000mm; the effective coating width of the dry separator coater can be controlled by arranging a plurality of dry coating units 4 at intervals in the direction perpendicular to the paper surface in fig. 2 to form a set of dry coating units.
The coating of the coating region on the base membrane of the diaphragm corresponding to the adjacent dry coating units 4 is the result of the coating superposition of the adjacent dry coating units 4, so the adjustment of the distance between the adjacent dry coating units 4 can adjust the uniformity of the functional coating in the width direction of the diaphragm; in order to obtain a uniform and stable dry coating, the linear speed of the base film at the coating back roll should be matched with the repetition frequency generated by the laser driving unit; the driving laser with higher repetition frequency is suitable for a certain range, so that the uniformity of the coating and the high-speed coating capability are better.
In addition, in the movement direction of the diaphragm, a plurality of groups of dry coating units can be arranged in series according to requirements, and one-time multilayer coating is conveniently realized. Specifically, the invention can realize one-time coating of the same or different materials on a single-sided multilayer, a double-sided single layer or a double-sided multilayer by serially arranging a plurality of groups of laser driving units and a plurality of groups of dry coating units. The number of the dry coating units 4 may be 1 group as shown in fig. 2, or may be multiple groups connected in series, for example, the number may be arbitrarily selected between 1 to 100, preferably 1 to 10 groups, in practical application, a certain number of groups of dry coating units may be connected in series as required, and fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a coating operation principle of the dry membrane coater according to the embodiment of the present invention. Here, two dry coating units 4 are placed in series as an example.
The dry-method diaphragm coating machine provided by the invention is used for preparing diaphragms of primary batteries, secondary batteries and fuel batteries; wherein the secondary battery may specifically include: liquid, solid-liquid mixed or all solid lithium batteries, sodium batteries, lithium sulfur batteries, and lithium air batteries.
Coating material powders suitable for the dry separator coater of the present invention include, but are not limited to: ceramic powder, organic powder, solid electrolyte powder, and hydroxide powder. In addition, solid binder powder can be mixed in the coating material powder, and the solid binder powder accounts for 0-30wt% of the total mass of the coating material powder.
Separator base films suitable for use in the dry separator coater of the present invention include, but are not limited to: polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), cellulose diaphragm, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), polyvinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP), polyamide (PA), polyimide (PI), aramid (including meta-aramid (PMIA), para-aramid (PPTA)), and the like.
According to the dry-method diaphragm coating machine provided by the embodiment of the invention, the diaphragm is automatically unreeled through the diaphragm unreeling unit, the diaphragm base film to be coated is discharged, and the diaphragm base film is preheated and flattened through the diaphragm preheating oven flattening unit and is sent to the dry-method coating unit; the laser driving unit generates laser, the coating material powder in the dry coating unit is ionized, and the coating of the dry powder serving as the coating material on the diaphragm base film is realized by utilizing the actions of physical adsorption and plasma deposition, so that the diaphragm coated with the dry powder material is obtained; and the coated diaphragm is rolled by a diaphragm rolling unit to form a coated diaphragm product. The dry method diaphragm coating machine provided by the invention does not use a liquid solvent in the process, avoids various problems existing in a wet method coating process, not only optimizes and simplifies the structure of the coating machine, but also obtains a coating diaphragm with better consistency, and has the advantages of simple process, uniform coating, high coating thickness precision and high coating production efficiency.
The above-mentioned embodiments are intended to illustrate the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention in further detail, and it should be understood that the above-mentioned embodiments are merely exemplary embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.