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IonSight™ –
See Inside Every Cell in Your Production Line
From the invention of the microscope to the use of MRIs, major breakthroughs in imaging technology have advanced our ability to observe subjects in greater detail and with greater clarity. Now, we are applying the proven science of ultrasound imaging to battery technology.
Titan’s IonSight™ is the first real-time battery inspection system that sees inside a cell, instantly mapping its morphology and identifying manufacturing anomalies. IonSight™ is a purpose-built product designed to integrate into a manufacturing line and operate at production speeds. Using high-resolution ultrasound sensing and machine learning algorithms, IonSight™ collects and processes data from every cell to flag anomalies and recognize patterns. IonSight’s actionable insights drive production process optimization, resulting in increased process yields and end-of-line cell quality.
IonSight™ –
Who uses it?
Pilot Lines
Scale: 10,000 cells/day
Goals: De-risk new technology and minimize time to production-ready yield
Where IonSight™ Helps: Accelerate learning cycles by recognizing defect trends across all cells and revealing which steps require attention.
Production Lines
Scale: 50,000+ cells/line/day
Goals: Optimize production processes to maximize quality yield
Where IonSight™ Helps:
Rapidly inspect every single cell and build a comprehensive data set of common defects on the line.
Go beyond OCV and DCIR tests by observing each cell from the inside and flagging cells with anomalies that may not achieve their lifetime performance goals.
How IonSight™ helps
Quality Team
Discover hidden defects that elude electrochemical tests
IonSight™ examines every layer of every cell for defects, which means that you discover defective cells that would have otherwise been integrated into a pack.
Reduce warranty claims and recalls
By seeing defects in every cell, avoid shipping cells that may later cause a thermal runaway event or reduced pack performance.
Process Engineering
Reduce cycle times by 20%
By determining the correct amount of time in electrolyte wetting and ambient aging, IonSight™ saves 20% of a cell’s cycle time and lowers work in progress
Improve yields by 2-5% with rapid corrective actions
Use high resolution cell data to keep process parameters between guardrails and shrink the operating envelope. IonSight’s defect identification capabilities lead to corrective actions across multiple steps of the process.
Speeding up time to peak yield by at least 4% per year
During ramp-up, traditional inspection must infer quality after the end of ambient aging. After IonSight™ halves the cycle time, the granular recommendations lead to faster corrective actions and higher yield at each step of the process.
Cell Capabilities
Analyze charge distribution for every cell
Capacity can vary by as much 5% due to inhomogeneity of layers within the cell. To avoid premature ageing, the entire cell should undergo uniform charging and discharging. Accurate charge mapping enables optimized long-term performance of each cell.
Predict capacity fade over a cell’s lifetime
By correlating cell anomalies to OCV and ageing parameters, IonSight™ enables accurate grading of cells around lifetime performance expectations.
Cell Manufacturing Defects that Make Economic Impact
While the set of defects affecting cells of a particular chemistry varies between production lines of different maturity, our technology is customizable to equip you with the right quality control tools and relevant insights
Why Ultrasound?
To complete the battery manufacturing process, batteries undergo end-of-line testing to evaluate their capacity, internal resistance, and self-discharge. If a battery does not satisfy performance requirements, it may be considered for further inspection. Computer topography (CT) scanning is the most prominent technology for visual cell inspection, however this technology is not available at most battery manufacturing plants, so in-depth testing is outsourced to third parties. CT testing takes hours to complete and costs hundreds of dollars per cell, limiting battery manufacturers to take a random sample of cells to determine their cause of failure.
Titan’s ultrasound-based interrogation technology brings speed, resolution, and favorable economics, enabling comprehensive testing of every cell within the existing manufacturing process. Most significantly, ultrasound outperforms CT scanning by creating feature-rich datasets, which uncover otherwise imperceivable cell anomalies.
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Example: CT and ultrasound scan of the same pouch cell
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Both scans detected tear inside one of the cell layers, bottom right section
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Ultrasound found material property variations (purple shadowing), which were almost imperceivable in CT scan
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Ultrasound test took minutes while CT scan took hours
Your Cell Manufacturing Equipment, Our Battery Intelligence
Using ultrasound technology Titan inspects cell morphology, identifies cell anomalies, and determines capacity and impact on the cell safety and lifetime performance.
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We partner with top-tier cell equipment manufacturers to deliver a full quality solution. Each client is unique, and so is our battery quality assurance solution. We customize the configuration of our system and algorithms to meet each battery type and to seamlessly integrate within your existing workflow.
To achieve the best results, we partner with industry experts, cell manufacturing equipment OEMs and integrators worldwide. By combining their expertise in productization and technology integration for industrial environments with our ultrasound-based interrogation technology we can deliver full quality solutions to our cell manufacturing customers.
If you are a cell manufacturer or cell equipment OEM and would like to learn more about our solutions, please get in touch. We are actively expanding our list of global partners and working on our first pilot deployment.
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