By ATN Editorial Team
Author: Joe Stevenson, Anaphite CEO
Electric vehicles are essential to keep Net Zero on track and the cost of batteries needs to come down further to accelerate the switch from combustion engines. Dry coating of electrodes can make battery cells cheaper and lower their carbon footprint, enabling vehicle manufacturers to bring more affordable and more sustainable EVs to market.
Had the automotive industry continuously developed electric vehicles after the first one was built in 18321, at which time the lead-acid battery hadn’t even been invented, the current state-of-the-art in battery technology today can only be imagined.
Instead, the boom in internal combustion engine vehicles meant that the first era of EVs came to an end and for a hundred years, electric vehicles were confined to special applications. Now, public policy and regulations to limit climate change have combined with advances in battery chemistry made in consumer applications to create a new generation of electric vehicles. But this is a huge challenge as the battery pack can account for up to 40% of an EV’s cost2, of which 80% is taken by the cells themselves. With consumers in many markets citing EV costs as one of the main reasons why they’re hesitant to make the switch – sometimes expecting cost parity with combustion engine vehicles – it’s clear that cell manufacturing must become more cost-effective.
The stage at which the most significant changes and impact can be made is electrode production. This first step in cell manufacturing involves the careful mixing of materials, then the coating and drying of them onto metal foil current collectors. In the next stage of production, these electrodes are compressed, cut and assembled into battery cells. Each stage has been refined over time, but one area remains ripe for disruption: how the electrode materials are applied to the current collectors.
Today, nearly all manufacturers use the slot die casting of solvent-based slurries – a process known as wet coating. While proven and reliable, it is inefficient. Active materials, binders, and conductive agents are suspended in solvents, applied to foils, and then dried in long ovens—often running 100 metres and consuming up to 5MW of power at high temperatures. This step alone consumes roughly 30% of a battery plant’s energy.
The move toward dry coating (coating as a dry powder, instead of a wet slurry) offers compelling advantages: removing the drying step reduces the line footprint by up to 80% and slashes energy use by about 85%. However, dry coating hasn’t yet scaled because it may introduce technical trade-offs. Electrode materials can be degraded when mixed without solvent due to heat and shear stress, and achieving a uniform blend is notoriously difficult. The result is lower production yield and subpar cell performance.
At Anaphite, we’ve developed a breakthrough set of solutions that addresses these barriers head-on. Rather than relying on mechanical force alone, our platform uses chemical processing to produce a Dry Coating Precursor (DCPÒ) – a homogenous, dry composite electrode powder ready for application to the foil current collector. This method is cost competitive with dry mixing and delivers significantly better material integrity and coating consistency.
Applied to both anode and cathode manufacturing, this technology can deliver up to a 2% cost reduction at vehicle level – a significant competitive edge for OEMs, for whom fractions of a cent saved on the cost of a single component is important.
The platform is flexible across battery chemistries like LFP and NMC, readily tailored to meet specific formulation or performance targets, and designed with real-world manufacturability in mind. It can be retrofitted into existing gigafactories with a payback period as short as 12 months, or integrated into new plants for reduced build costs, smaller footprints, and lower energy infrastructure requirements – essential for regions with limited grid capacity.
Wet coating has been optimised to its practical limits. Dry coating holds the key to the next leap in EV battery manufacturing – but only if it can be executed reliably, at scale, and without performance compromise.
This EV era must be a successful one if we are to decarbonise road transport and stay on track for Net Zero. As global OEMs look to make their supply chains more cost-efficient to bring to market EVs sold at a price that consumers are willing to pay, and to compete with an ever-growing number of new Chinese EV brands, dry coating isn’t just an option – it’s fast becoming a strategic imperative.
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1 https://www.energy.gov/timeline-history-electric-car
2 https://global.honda/en/sustainability/integratedreport/business-strategy/
