How Lithium Polymer Batteries are Made

Contributors: Nate

Electrode Creation

These machines take the rolls of electrodes, attach a terminal or tab, cut them to the proper length, and a whole bunch of other things I can't quite discern.

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Here's a video of the machines in glorious action.

And there's a ton of them.

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Here's a close up of the tab welding.

Once a pile of a given anode type is made, it is brought together with a pile of the cathode of the same size. A semi-permeable membrane is inserted between the layers, and the three strips are then folded together many times.

The above machine is a semi-automatic machine. It requires the operator to insert and line up the two electrodes, but it does the rest.

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Here's a video of the machine wrapping a cell.

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Above is a close-up of the folding or wrapping of the layers.

And when you're done you have the layers folded many times and taped.

Multiply the lines, and you can see how this factory produces 750,000 units a month.

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Above is a more automated wrapping machine. This level of automation makes me giddy. How do you build something like that and keep it running without constant tweaking?! Amazing.