Battery makers like CATL and LG Energy Solution lose money on every meter of wasted electrode sheet and copper foil. Packaging makers like Amcor and Mondi face the same problem with barrier films.
Regulations add a second reason to cut this waste. PPWR asks packaging makers to use less material and more recycled content. Meanwhile, battery regulation in the EU require companies to trace their material flows from start to finish.
Industry leaders are already responding. CATL has developed a system that uses two visual inspections to correct electrode sheet position at the tab-cutting and slitting stages. A recent innovation uses cameras and tension sensors to adjust cutter pressure and feed speed on copper foil in real time.
Yet most of these fixes still work as separate machines. A camera can find a defect, but it cannot tell what caused it. Was it tension, blade wear or a splice?
The points to the next step: one yield system that links inspection, web control, cutting, splicing, and recovery.
This report maps about 15,000 patent families on how web lines lose material and how to reduce it. It shows which areas are crowded, which still have room, where you need an IP check before you build, and which use cases give your customers a payback they can measure.
What’s Inside the Report?
Our Material Waste Minimization report helps equipment R&D and product teams decide which yield technologies to build, which to partner on, and which to avoid. It covers:
1Our Material Waste Minimization report helps equipment R&D and product teams decide which yield technologies to build, which to partner on, and which to avoid. It covers:
- Where do roll-to-roll lines lose the most material, from slitting and roll changes to web breaks, defects and trim?
- Which waste-reduction technologies are already crowded with patents, and which still leave room to build something new?
- Inspection and slitting, cameras and web guiding, or splice checks and reject control: which of these machine-to-machine links would cut the most waste if the machines worked together?
- How are suppliers like Valmet and Maxcess already linking slitting, web guiding, tension control and inspection.
- What will your customers test before they buy? Meters lost per roll change or breaks per production hour: which numbers prove the savings?
- Which R&D priorities to pursue now, ranked across inspection, trim recovery, splicing, web stability and slitting
Identify which waste control technologies your customers will pay for, where your next product can stand apart, and where to check the IP position before you build.
