A Novel Gripper for Battery Electrodes based on the Bernoulli-principle with Integrated Exhaust Air Compensation

During the assembly of battery cells, handling of the single sheet electrodes is a critical task. The electrodes have to be handled with high accuracy, low mechanical loads and low chemical contamination of the electrodes as well as the production environment. Especially lifting of electrodes with state-of-the-art area vacuum grippers causes immense mechanical stress which may lead to structural damage of the electrodes. This will ultimately lead to lowered performance of the cell or even in total failure of the whole cell. One way to overcome this problem is the use of grippers based on the Bernoulli principle which can lift grippers from a certain distance without direct contact but blow off their exhaust air into the production environment which has to be prevented in the dry room environment. This paper presents a concept to overcome this problem to enable the use of Bernoulli-grippers for the handling battery electrodes.