Battery Research: ZSW Reaches Key Milestone – Pilot Line for Cathode Materials in Full Operation

Ulm – The Powder-Up! pilot line for developing and scaling novel cathode materials at the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) in Ulm has entered full operation, marking a key milestone in battery research.

The EU aims to build a competitive European battery industry with its own production capacity along the value chain. The development and manufacture of cathode materials, which influence both the performance and the cost of battery cells, play an important role in this. Global production of these materials and their precursors is so far heavily concentrated in China.

Powder-Up! Open to Industry and Research for Collaborative Projects

With full operation reached, the Powder-Up! pilot line is available to companies and research institutions for developing and testing cathode materials under near-production conditions. According to ZSW, it is the first pilot line of its kind in Germany. The research facility covers key process steps from material synthesis and thermal treatment to analysis and electrochemical testing.

The Powder-Up! pilot line comprises about 2,400 square metres of usable space and more than 135 units and devices. It is designed to produce cathode materials in batches of up to 100 kilograms. Process and analysis data are recorded digitally and are also available for AI applications.

The facility was inaugurated in May 2024 and commissioned in March 2025. According to ZSW, shortly after commissioning it succeeded in scaling initial material samples from a few grams to about 15 kilograms.

NMC, LFP and Sodium-Ion: Research on Different Cathode Materials

One focus of the pilot line is nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode materials, which are used in particular in lithium-ion batteries with high energy density. Material properties can be influenced by varying the proportions of the metals.

ZSW is currently also concentrating on lithium iron phosphate (LFP). These cathode materials do not contain nickel or cobalt and are already produced at ZSW on a kilogram scale. The institute is also investigating materials for sodium-ion batteries.

Thermal treatment plays an important role in production. According to ZSW, temperatures range from 600 to 1,000 degrees Celsius depending on the process and must be maintained within a few degrees. The pilot line allows manufacturing processes to be studied in larger quantities and the resulting materials to be tested electrochemically afterwards.

European Battery Value Creation: Cathode Materials as a Key Cost Factor

Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show the economic importance of cathode materials. In battery cell production in China in 2024, cathode active materials accounted on average for 40 to 50 percent of the manufacturing costs of NMC cells. For LFP cells, the share was between 25 and 30 percent. Materials development is therefore relevant not only for technical properties but also for production costs.

At the same time, the international market for battery technologies is changing. According to the IEA, LFP batteries accounted for more than 55 percent of the battery capacity used in electric vehicles worldwide in 2025. The production of LFP cathode materials and their precursors is so far almost entirely concentrated in China. Global dependence thus affects not only battery cell manufacturing but also an important upstream production stage.

The ZSW pilot line addresses this upstream stage of battery value creation. It makes it possible to study manufacturing processes for different cathode materials beyond laboratory scale. Whether this can lead to economically viable industrial production, however, has not yet been demonstrated with the full operation now reached.

Source: IWR Online, 28 Oct 2026