Thomas Kolbusch, Vice President, COATEMA COATING MACHINERY GMBH
Thomas Kolbusch is Vice President of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, an equipment manufacturing company for coating, printing and laminating solutions located in Dormagen, Germany.

He is member of the board of the OE-A (Organic Electronic Association) in Germany, a global association for printed electronics.

He serves in the advisory board of Fraunhofer ITA institute.

Dr.-Ing. Roman Keding, Research production fuel cell, FRAUNHOFER ISE

 Roman Keding studied microsystems engineering at the institute of microsystems engineering (IMTEK) of the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg im Breisgau (2005 – 2011). During his bachelor (2008), master (2010) and doctoral thesis (2011 – 2015) – which he prepared at the Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg – he received detailed knowledge on industrially relevant processes. Since 2015, Roman Keding is leading the group „process integration” and the field of work „production research of fuel cells” at ISE, where he is responsible for the integration of processes into emerging cell technologies.

Delil Demir, Research associate, FRAUNHOFER-INSTITUT FÜR LASERTECHNIK ILT

Delil Idris Demir is a research associate at Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen. He graduated with a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from TH Köln and is currently researching the challenges and opportunities of fast laser drying of battery electrodes.

Klaus Hamacher, Director New Business Development, BST GMBH

• Over 34 years of worldwide cultural experience in the international business of optical inline quality assurance systems for web material production processes.
• More than two decades of experience in global sales and business development of new strategic markets and customers.
• Further focus on systematic development and implementation of large global customers into strategic key accounts.
• Today, global responsibility for the new business development for the BST, with focus on Rechargeable Battery, Fuel Cell, Printed Electronics and Solar manufacturing Industries.

Johannes Schuler, Business Development Optical Inline Metrology, KEYENCE DEUTSCHLAND GMBH

2020 - today Business Development „New Energy” - Keyence Deutschland GmbH
2017 - 2020  Sales Engineer for Optical Measurement Technology - Keyence Deutschland GmbH
2013 - 2017  Master study „Industrial Engineering” - University of Applied Sciences Nordhausen
2010 - 2013  Dual Bachelor studies „Business Administration” - Leibniz University of Applied Sciences Hannover in cooperation with Robert BOSCH GmbH

Werner Volk, Business Development Manager, OPTIMA LIFE SCIENCE GMBH
Mechanical engineer (Dipl-Ing. FH) and MBA
Since 24 years in packaging machinery manufacturing.
Focus of the technology transfer of processes into the production of MEAs and stacks.

Jürgen Kreis, Managing Director, ARENDAR IT SECURITY
With degrees in electrical engineering and industrial engineering, Juergen has more than 25 years of experience managing business units and companies for complex technology solutions. He has a broad technical understanding and resilient networks in semiconductors, electrical and optical metrology, machine vision, computer science, AI, nano-materials, and other areas.

With his own consulting company MARU International Business Consulting he has been working as a consultant for medium-sized companies since 2010. Addressed topics include the development of international sales organizations (esp. for Asian and NAFTA markets), M&A projects, identification of new technologies and suppliers, restructuring and intercultural competence. Since spring 2021, he is supporting Arendar IT-Security GmbH, responsible for sales and marketing as well as business development.

Dr. Marcus Glaum, Sales Inline Solutions, HELMUT FISCHER GMBH
Dr. Marcus Glaum holds a degree in chemistry and has been working in sales at Helmut Fischer, a leading manufacturer of measuring instruments, since 2003.
He is an expert in the field of coating thickness measurement with X-ray fluorescence.
He is responsible for the sales of automated measurement solutions and supports his sales colleagues worldwide in automation projects in the field of coating thickness measurements.
The main focus of the projects is on applications in the electronics and semiconductor industry as well as in the photovoltaics sector.
But also, for some time now, in the field of fuel cells.
Today Dr. Glaum reports on how the platinum content of membranes for fuel cells can be monitored in-line.
Please look forward to his lecture: "In-line Monitoring Pt Content for Fuel Cells Membranes with XRF".

Antti Takaluoma, Senior Specialist, OFFCODE OY
I have a strong background in embedded electronics and software from the last millennium.

At beginning of 2000 I was researching at Nokia of areas of Near Field Communications (NFC) and Bluetooth Low Power (BLE).
2003, I join Avantone Oy, as a development head. Avantone Oy was one of the first commercial Printed Intelligence companies, with customers of global brands.
Since 2007 I have been working at Offcode studying and researching the technical aspects that printed electronics, especially ones related to R2R process.

Now at Offcode I'm driving the development of the 3^rd generation Arcos -registration control system and the related products.

Harmen Rooms, Manager R&D, COATEMA COATING MACHINERY GMBH
Harmen Rooms studied Applied Physics at the Fontys University in Eindhoven and received his Bachelor degree in 2003.
He worked at Philips N.V. in the field of electrooptical characterization of OLED devices and at OTB as measurement and analysis engineer. At TNO and Holst Centre he continued his work on OLEDs but also focused on modelling and optical simulations. During this time, he participated in the European Multiscale Modelling Platform (MMP) project. Harmen Rooms has co-initiated and worked on several local and European projects like CPV4All (Setting up pilot production of concentrated PV modules) and Clean4Yield (in-line measurement and yield control in Roll-to-Roll applications).
In 2018 he joined Coatema as Head of R&D Projects where he leads a team for coordination and execution of funded projects.

Stefan Weigl, Development positive displacement pumps, NETZSCH PUMPEN & SYSTEME GMBH

Friedel H. Schwartz

1989 Foundation of MTS and cooperation with Sequip
1993 Founding of Sequip S & E GmbH
1996 First customers and development partners: BAYER, Merck, Beiersdorf, BASF, University of Regensburg; Shell,
1999 Patent Grant Granted FBRM and autofocus
2000 to 2020 Start of over 100 research projects
2005 First orders for Battery Slurry

Kira Stephan studied Textile Technology at the „Hochschule Niederrhein” University of Applied Sciences in Mönchengladbach. After a practical semester at Coatema in 2020 she did her bachelor thesis with focus on printed electronics onto textiles in 2021. After that she joined Coatema as R&D Project Manager coordinating national and European funded projects related to upscaling of roll-to-roll and roll-to-sheet processes for different subjects like sustainable packaging, battery and smart textiles. In almost three years now, she has gained a high expertise in process planning, development and practical implementation of various printing and coating methods as well as laminating.

New technologies in fuel cells

The talk will be on working principles of PEM fuel cells and production research at Fraunhofer ISE, where indirect CCM technologies with flatbed screen printing of catalyst inks are in focus. In addition, ongoing research on rotary screen printing and slot-die processing is demonstrated.

Laser drying of battery electrodes

Laser-based drying of electrodes in the manufacturing of Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) is a forward-looking technology that can solve many challenges of modern battery production, such as reducing the footprint of drying modules and optimizing the energy efficiency of the drying process.

Process control – Proactive error prevention strategy for web-material production processes

Process control is fundamental in web-based production processes. This requires not only the use of suitable sensor technology, but also an intelligent networking of inline quality assurance systems with predictive control principles to prevent quality deviations before they occur.

Measurement solutions for electrodes and fuel cell components

Within the battery and fuel cell production quality inspection solutions are the key to ensure save and long-lasting final products. In a variety of different non-contact technologies optical measurement systems are a cost efficient and space saving alternative. By now it is standard practice to use confocal or laser-based measurement methods to ensure the alignment of slot-die systems, inspect coated surface or detect material thickness. Keyence offers a wide range of sensor solutions for any roll to toll processes.

MEA production equipment

OPTIMA is known as a well-established machine builder for the packaging industry.
In the last few years they transferred key technologies from that area to the manufacturing of fuel cell components. Focus is on web converting with continuous motion processes, and fast stacking of components.

Werner will do a short introduction of the company and their traditional products, markets and technologies, to show the starting point of this new venture. Optima will explain the areas of the technology transfer and were these technologies are applied to in the fuel cell manufacturing process. Challenges of the fuel cell production i.e. tolerances, materials etc. will be highlighted and suitable solutions already applied in the packaging industry will be shown.

It will be explain for which of the production steps and for which speeds Optima can provide suitable machines.

Process optimization enabled by Digital Twins

While the term Industry 4.0 has been around for more than 10 years already, all too often the hoped-for promises never became reality.

Recognizing that comprehensive data lakes are an indispensable prerequisite for process optimization, Coatema has adopted  the ARENDAR digitalization solution as an optional feature for all product lines. This innovative and powerful connectivity module enables complete, standardized and secure access not only to the machine information itself, but to all relevant process data.

Based on an intelligent IoT gateway that integrates seamlessly into virtually any store floor, the ARENDAR solution offers a range of features that allows Coatema's customers to realize the full potential of digital twins.

The ARENDAR solution enables Coatema machines to be connected to adjacent processes on the store floor and data to be transferred securely both to the local IT infrastructure and to cloud systems as needed.

By putting ALL data (machine information, process conditions, environmental sensors) into a common context, data is transformed into valuable information, creating the holistic data sets needed for more advanced analytics.

The presentation will explain the key functionalities and highlight the numerous possibilities using examples from different industries.

In-line Monitoring of the Platinum Content for Fuel Cells Membranes with XRF

Platinum and PGMs are essential for the proper functioning of fuel cells. The Pt content of catalyst layers can be easily monitored in-line using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. In this way, the quality of the catalyst layer can be ensured, and precious metal consumption and costs can be optimised.

Intelligent automation-cloud communication enables evolving production services

Here we discuss the option where the production system has open communication interfaces.
Each individual process application is managed from cloud, while the process objects are executing in real-time at the physical process. For process integrator this offers a nice distribution of responsibilities. For process application owners this opens the ability to manage/develop fleets of products without visiting sites.

The process owner will gain additional benefits for production specific data. This data opens opportunities for a new data processing service business.

Overview of Coatema R&D projects

Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH has been a reliable partner in funded R&D Projects since 2007. Since then, we have developed processes and machinery for a wide variety of applications, cooperating with institutes, universities and companies. In this presentation we will give an overview of projects throughout the years and how we developed processes and machinery in these projects.

Sustainable pumps for battery production

Progressing Cavity pumps are commonly used for coating applications. Demanding requirements can be seen in battery production especially for slot die coating. NETZSCH is the supplier for highly sophisticated and sustainable positive displacement pumps to ensure continuous high process quality.

Characterization of slurry and inks – Particle analytics under process conditions

• Return on investment from real-time measurements
• in particulate systems
• in the original concentrations, as undiluted as possible
• directly in the process

Spatial ALD: from Lab to Fab
SALD Netherlands, Erik Kremers, CTO / System Architect

NIR use in renewable technologies
LAMBDA TECHNOLOGY GERMANY, Gunther Ackermann / Managing Director

Live streaming:  Fuel cell ink coating at Coatema R&D centre

New era of web tension PROFILE monitoring in coating lines
FMS FORCE MEASURING SYSTEMS AG SWITZERLAND, Jörg Inhelder/ CEO

Flexographic printing for technology markets and converting
KROENERT GMBH GERMANY, Andrea Glawe / Regional Sales Director

HyFab – PEM FC MEA production research at Fraunhofer ISE
FRAUNHOFER ISE FREIBURG GERMANY, Linda Ney / Process Integration – Structuring and Metallization

Coatema Industry 4.0 solutions
ARENDAR IT-SECURITY GMBH GERMANY, Jürgen Kreis

Live streaming: Slot die coating trials at Coatema R&D centre

Industry 4.0 – Artificial intelligence for control of coating processes
PANDA GMBH GERMANY, Michael Welsch / Managing Director and Head of AI

Drying technologies
COATEMA COATING MACHINERY GMBH GERMANY, Thomas Exlager / R&D Manager

Live streaming: Registration trials at Coatema R&D centre

Pushing the boundaries of registration alignment using IoT and data analysis
COATEMA COATING MACHINERY GMBH GERMANY, Harmen Rooms / Manager R&D and Dr. Julian Koc-Richter / R&D Manager

Thomas Kolbusch, Vice President, Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH

Thomas Kolbusch is Vice President of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, an equipment manufacturing company for coating, printing and laminating solutions located in Dormagen, Germany.

He is member of the board of the OE-A (Organic Electronic Association) in Germany, a global association for printed electronics.

He serves in the advisory board of Fraunhofer ITA institute.

Erik Kremers, CTO / System Architect

After studying Mechatronics in 1997 Erik became involved in various High Tech Systemprojects in the semiconductor market and industrial printing developments. Here hegained a lot of experience with high accuracy positioning systems and fast industrialrobots. In 2012 Erik switched as a system architect to SoLayTec. In addition to thetechnical challenges as CTO, he is gradually more and more involved with organizationaland business challenges, which has led to the establishment of SALD.

Gunther Ackermann

Jörg Inhelder, CEO

Born November 1960 in Zürich
Schools in Zürich area
1980 – 1984 ETH Zürich Msc Electrical
1985 – 1987 Reliance Electric (now Rockwell) development of DC and AC drives with first power transistors
1988 head of force measuring department at FAG Kugelfischer in Zürich
1993 buyout of department, establish FMS Force Measuring Systems AG
Since then CEO of FMS Force Measuring Systems AG

Andrea Glawe, Regional Sales Director Asia-Pacific

Mrs. Andrea Glawe graduated in 1992 with the Master degree for „Technical textiles and process engineering“ at the Technical University of Chemnitz. She started her career as scientific assistant and project for the Textile Research Institute Thüringen-Vogtland e.V. Greiz between and worked there until 2001.

From 2001 to 2011 she worked as Deputy Sales Director with responsibility for technical sales and project management at Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH in Dormagen.

Between 2011 and 2012 she took her responsibility as R&D leader DRYTEC GmbH & Co KG in Norderstedt.

Between February 2012 and September 2015 Andrea Glawe worked as Director R&D for all R&D activities of the KROENERT group in Hamburg and was responsible for Business Development. Since October 2015 she is responsible as Regional Sales Director for the Asian / Pacific market at KROENERT.

Linda Ney, Dipl.-Ing. Process Integration: Structuring and Metallization, Production Technology: Structuring and Metallization (PSM) 

Linda Ney received her diploma in the field of renewable energy systems from the technical university of Dresden. Since 2017 she works at Fraunhofer ISE, focusing on the optimization of screens for solar cell manufacturing. In 2019 she started her PhD about the development of industry-related production processes for PEM-fuel cells, as well as evaluating the composition and rheology of catalyst inks and pastes.

Dr. Jürgen Kreis

With degrees in electrical engineering and industrial engineering, Juergen has more than 25 years of experience managing business units and companies for complex technology solutions. He has a broad technical understanding and resilient networks in semiconductors, electrical and optical metrology, machine vision, computer science, AI, nano-materials, and other areas.

With his own consulting company MARU International Business Consulting he has been working as a consultant for medium-sized companies since 2010.  Addressed topics include the development of international sales organizations (esp. for Asian and NAFTA markets), M&A projects, identification of new technologies and suppliers, restructuring and intercultural competence. Since spring 2021, he is supporting Arendar IT-Security GmbH, responsible for sales and marketing as well as business development.

Michael Welsch, CEO

Michael Welsch, is co-founder, CEO and head of AI at PANDA. After his mechanical engineering degrees, he worked in the automotive sector in the areas of development, failure analysis and process optimization and moved from there into research. In 2016, he started developing a new machine learning approach for monitoring and analyzing production processes, which led eventually to the spin-off of PANDA GmbH in 2018. PANDA GmbH specializes in the integration of AI in industrial manufacturing.

Thomas Exlager, R&D Manager
Thomas Exlager studied Nano-Engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen with his Bachelor in 2014 and Master in 2017.
During his studies he focused on optical and electrical characterization methods of Nanomaterials. In 2017 he joined Coatema as R&D Project Manager, coordinating national and European funded projects related to upscaling of roll-to-roll and roll-to-sheet processes for sustainable packaging, battery applications and nanoimprint lithography.
In 2020 Thomas changed his role in Coatema to that of a junior scientist, focusing on coating, drying, and structuring processes for thin and thick film applications as well as mathematical process modeling.

Dr. Daniel Klier

Harmen Rooms, Manager R&D
Harmen Rooms studied Applied Physics at the Fontys University in Eindhoven and received his Bachelor degree in 2003.
He worked at Philips N.V. in the field of electrooptical characterization of OLED devices and at OTB as measurement and analysis engineer. At TNO and Holst Centre he continued his work on OLEDs but also focused on modelling and optical simulations. During this time, he participated in the European Multiscale Modelling Platform (MMP) project. Harmen Rooms has co-initiated and worked on several local and European projects like CPV4All (Setting up pilot production of concentrated PV modules) and Clean4Yield (in-line measurement and yield control in Roll-to-Roll applications).
In 2018 he joined Coatema as Head of R&D Projects where he leads a team for coordination and execution of funded projects.

Erik Kremers

Spatial ALD from Lab to Fab

In all growth markets, maximum throughput at the lowest possible costs is essential for success!

SALD has developed a unique technology that makes this possible, which is protected by several patents. This technology has been incorporated into a compact machine that can be used for research as well as for small-scale production. It does not matter which material is involved: battery electrode, solar cell, OLED or foil. Moreover, SALD is the only company in the world that has the expertise to subsequently quickly and reliably upscale the Spatial ALD technology to high volume production.
In Spatial ALD (SALD) precursors are continuously supplied in different locations and kept apart by an inert gas region or zone. Film growth is achieved by exposing the substrate to the locations containing the different precursors. The process is very fast and compatible with fast-throughput techniques such as roll-to-roll (R2R), and is versatile and cheap to scale up. In addition, one of the main assets of SALD is that it can be performed at ambient pressure and even in the open air, while not compromising the deposition rate.

New era of web tension PROFILE monitoring in coating lines

Measurement of tension in web materials is well known since decades. The development focus was on precision of the loadcells and amplifiers with higher resolution, shorter cycle times and communication interfaces. State of the art is one loadcell on each side of an idler roller. Evaluation in the electronic unit can be sum / average of both signals or also independent evaluation of left/right signals. This allows an accurate measurement of the (overall) tension in a web. But it does not give any information about the lateral distribution of tension across the web. Although very often a web material does not have the same properties across the web (humidity in the material, thickness = gauge etc).

With production processes requiring tighter and tighter tolerances this information is no longer sufficient. Especially with wider webs one needs to ensure that the material properties are the same all over the web width. This can be measured by a multitude of loadcells across the web. With such a measurement (monitoring) device it is possible to do a real-time analysis of the tension profile / distribution across the web. You can also detect loose edges, one-side tension concentration, repeating patterns over time / length. This measurement is the base for improving previous (upstream) processes and in addition it allows the qualification of different rolls according to their consistency of tension across the web. The operator can influence the process based on the measurements (web guiding, banana rollers etc) and also document the results through standard interfaces. This new system, the FMS-segFORCE introduces a new era of web tension profile monitoring.

Flexo graphic printing for technology markets and converting

Flexibility and challenging solutions are required for coating lines. Printing processes are often integrated in converting lines to give added value to the machine. Logo print in silicone release liner coating lines is a standard solution and even pattern silicone application is realized within fast running coating lines. And flexo printing processes are used in challenging applications too such as design application for battery electrodes and even printed electronics applications. KROENERT will give with the presentation an overview about flexo graphic printing technology and application samples for high-speed converting machines but also for high-end solutions like printed electronics.

HyFab PEM fuel cell MEA production research at ISE

Today’s PEM fuel cell catalyst production research addresses the challenges of upscaling and optimizing the fabrication process, which includes increasing throughput rates while maintaining quality demands. Within the project HyFab we are addressing these challenges and establish production related competences in the field of hydrogen technologies together with the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). At Fraunhofer ISE, we are investigating the whole production line coming from the catalyst ink, applying flatbed screen printing and the transfer process to manufacture membrane electrode assemblies. Different ex-situ quality control measurements are shown to evaluate correlations of coated catalyst layer and catalyst ink properties. Finally, the fabricated fuel cells are characterized electrochemically during operation.

Dr. Jürgen Kreis

Dr. Daniel Klier

FP22 – Registration Offcode / VTT and data analysis (Brunel)

In the industry of printed electronics alignment of the printed structures is a mandatory aspect. The goal is to achieve registration alignment of 10 micrometer or better in the coming years. For more than 10 years, Coatema is working together with Offcode Oy. as a strategic partner to develop a registration system that meets the needs of the printed electronics industry. As part of several funded projects, such as REGAC, Smartonics, Supersmart and OLED Solar, Coatema has been working to improve the alignment accuracy by improving its machinery design. Now with advances in data collection of different conditions such as temperature, humidity and vibration, data analysis can be performed and will be the used to understand the error causes even better, thereby moving toward the needed accuracy for e.g. printed transistors.

Thomas Kolbusch, Vice President, Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH

Thomas Kolbusch is Vice President of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, an equipment manufacturing company for coating, printing and laminating solutions located in Dormagen, Germany.

He is member of the board of the OE-A (Organic Electronic Association) in Germany, a global association for printed electronics.

He serves in the advisory board of Fraunhofer ITA institute.

Dr. Klaus Peter Crone

Klaus Peter Crone received his PhD in physics and astronomy from University Bonn in 1984. As head of the divisions „process analysis 2” at Bayer AG and „measurement and analysis” at Agfaphoto GmbH he developed customized coating and analysis techniques for the photographic and pharmaceutical industry. Since 2009 as head of R&D at Coatema he focused on various coating and drying techniques especially slot die coating. Retired in 2015 he now works at Coatema for R&D and special tasks.

Dr. Shahzad Khan

Shahzad Khan graduated with BSc in Physics, MSc in Electronics and PhD in Mechatronics Engineering in 1999, 2001 and 2008 respectively and has more than 18 years of experience in high tech industries (semiconductor, healthcare, automotive, digital printing).
For the past 8 years, he is working at NTS as Sr. Business Developer for support customer who are looking for customized industrial inkjet printer or printer modules.

Dr. Sandeep Unnikrishnan

Dr. Sandeep Unnikrishnan is the R&D Program Manager for next generation battery technology development. He has an engineering background on manufacturing technology, and later did his PhD on micro structured fuel cells. He has more than 17 years’ experience in technology development for multitude of devices, including organic electronics, fuel-cells and batteries. He has filed over 20 patents, authored 17 publications in peer reviewed journals, and several more conference publications. In 2016, he complemented his technical expertise with business knowhow by completing an executive MBA.

Dr. Dimitrios Kourkoulos

Dr. Dimitrios Kourkoulos studied Chemistry at the University of Cologne and received his diploma in 2006. During his Ph.D.-studies that he completed in 2015 he focused on the characterisation and optimization of solution processed thin film devices. He worked as a Project & Technology Manager at the COPT Centre, a German research and technology transfer institute. During this time, he coordinated and participated in several national founded projects with a focus on printed electronics and the analysis of surface and coating defects. In 2019 he joined Coatema as R&D Project Manager and coordinates national and European funded projects related to upscaling of roll-to-roll and roll-to-sheet processes for sustainable packaging, battery applications and nanoimprint lithography.

Ing. Milan Saalmink

Milan Saalmink received his BSc in Polymer Chemistry in 2000 at the Fontys University of Applied Science Venlo, the Netherlands. After finishing his internship in 2000, he joined Philips Research to work on polymer-based thin films. Application of these films were in LCD displays, multilayer data storage, microcontact printing and a number of projects on sensor applications. In 2007, he joined TNO as a process engineer on integration technologies. Since 2015 he is working as a senior process engineer on hybrid printed electronics, in the field of wearable electronics. Within the wearable electronics team, technologies and applications for medical patches and integration of electronics into garment are developed.

Dr. John Fahlteich

Dr. John Fahlteich (male) was born 1981 and graduated from the University of Leipzig with a diploma in physics in 2005. In 2010, he earned a PhD from the Technical University of Chemnitz with a thesis about vacuum deposited permeation barrier layers.
In total, he has now 15 years of experience in Roll-to-Roll Thin Film Coating on Plastic Web. John is a Research Group Leader in the Business Unit „Plasma Technology” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP in Dresden, Germany.
As of today, he published over 40 papers, conference contributions and patents as well as three book chapters in the field. John is currently principal consortium coordinator of three Horizon 2020 funded EU Projects (Switch2Save, NanoQI, and the Open Innovation Test Bed FlexFunction2Sustain).

Werner Volk

Education: Diplom Ingenieur (FH) Maschinenbau, MBA

More than 20 years of experience in packaging machines. Looking for new applications and technology transfer from packing to manufacturing and stacking of fuel cells etc.

Positions:

• Mechanical Designer at ebm-Papst (Fan and motor manufacturer)
• Mechanical Design
  Project Engineering and Project Mangement at Kugler (Packaging machines)
• Sales and Project Mangagement at Harro Höfliger (Packaging machines)
• Product Management
  Director New Applications at OPTIMA (Packaging Machines)

Prof. Thomas Gries

Thomas Gries, born in Cologne, Germany, in 1964, studied at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He holds a diploma degree in mechanical engineering and economics and a doctorate in mechanical engineering.

From 1995 to 2001, he worked at Lurgi Zimmer AG, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, at the Department of Technologies for Fibres&Textiles in leading positions.

From April 2001 onwards, he is Director of the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) of RWTH Aachen University. The honoris causa Professorship of Lomonossow University is the most distinguished scientific award of Russia given for his achievement of tailored reinforcements.

The ITA was established in 1934 and is one of the world’s leading research establishments. Its fields of research consist in man-made fibre technology, staple fibre processing, fabric production, technical textiles & composites, medical textiles & biomaterials as well as in smart textiles & joining technologies. With a budget of 15 million € and a staff consisting of 110 scientists, 65 technicians and administration staff and more than 200 graduate researchers ITA is leading in the digitalization of the textile sector.

Thomas Gries presently is

• Member of National Academy of Technological Science and Engineering (acatech),
• Member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Science,
• Member of the scientific advisory committee of the “Zukunftsinitiative Textile NRW (ZiTex)” and other institutions,
• Evaluator DFG (German Research Foundation) as well as of other national and international project funding organisations,
• Member of the International Advisory Board of the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH),
• Member of editorial board of several highly ranked scientific journals and conferences

Asst. Prof. Argiris Laskarakis

Head of the Organic Electronics Group of Nanotechnology Lab LTFN

Asst. Prof. A. Laskarakis has graduated from the Physics Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He finalized his PhD at 2005, and his Thesis is focused on the investigation of the optical properties of inorganic and organic nanostructured materials for advanced applications.

He is specialist in Flexible Organic & Printed Electronics nanomaterials (organic semiconductors, transparent electrodes, barriers for encapsulation) and devices (e.g. organic photovoltaics, organic thin film transistors) by vacuum and printing methods. Also, he is expert in optical metrology of inorganic, organic and hybrid nanostructured materials by Optical Spectroscopy methods as well as on the computational modelling of optical properties of nanomaterials and thin films.
He has worked as a Senior Researcher in more than 14 EU funded R&D projects, whereas he is General Manager of 3 H2020 Projects in cutting edge subjects in the development of materials, processes and devices of Flexible Organic Electronics (CORNET, RealNano, MUSICODE). His work includes more than 85 peer-reviewed publications in International Scientific Journals, 4 book chapters, more than 130 presentations in International Scientific Conferences. Finally, since 2008 he is responsible for the organization of the International Symposium on Flexible Organic Electronics (ISFOE).

Slot dies originally have been invented for uniform, endless, full area coatings. Their dedicated advantages to be a premetered closed system are more and more requested as well for intermittent coatings, e.g. in the battery industry. The main problem of intermittent slot die coating, namely the successive fast start and stop of the coating process, has meanwhile been solved quite satisfyingly for rather high viscous slurries. For low viscous liquids there are still problems to achieve well defined coating edges. A new method is presented, still being in development, to overcome such issues.

High speed inkjet printing – A system integration perspective

In recent years, several markets (e.g. coating) are adopting integrated digital technologies to print functional layer which is pushing Inkjet technology to achieve high speed (> 100 meter/min) with drop placement accuracies (+/- 10 micrometers). This induces challenges (amongst others) with respect to vibrations of mechanical modules (print bar), high flow rate in the ink delivery system and power supplies requirements for fast print head activation. In this presentation, we elaborate the challenges along with the its effects and propose a solution space from a system integration perspective to achieve high speed printing with desired accuracy.

M. Ameen, L. Haverkate, F. Grob, B. Anothumakkool, F. Roozeboom, and S. Unnikrishnan

TNO-Holst Centre, High Tech Campus 31, 5656 AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands

The key challenges in next-generation all-solid-state Li-ion battery technology are related to the energy and power densities required, fast charging constraints, battery lifetime, while keeping the cost low by high-volume manufacturing. A combination of high energy density anodes such as Si or Li, and Ni- or Li- rich cathodes 1,2 is necessary to achieve high energy densities.

However, many of such high-potential redox-chemistries lead to serious safety issues and degradation during cycling due to either oxidative or reductive instabilities 3, especially occurring at the electrode-electrolyte interface 4. The solution is to optimize the interfaces with chemically and mechanically-stable Li-ion conductive passivation layers depending on the Li-ion battery chemistry in order to mitigate the non-compatibility of the individual cell components. The interfacial stabilization layers can be formed either in-situ using electrolyte additives or ex-situ via chemical and physical methods. One option here is offered by atomic layer deposition (ALD) which is the preferred technique to achieve superior quality and 3D-conformal coatings with atomic-scale thickness precision.

However, conventional vacuum-based ALD is not compatible with the mainstay high-throughput roll-to-roll battery electrode production. Here, the large-area atmospheric-pressure spatial-ALD (s-ALD) technology -as established by TNO-Holst Centre several years- ago can offer prime solutions for various applications including thin-film batteries 5. A wide range of materials like metal oxides, nitrides, sulfides, and hybrid organic-inorganic materials are possible using s-ALD. In this talk, we will introduce the R2R upscalable spatial-ALD technology and its potential applications for batteries. Furthermore, we will discuss the latest results on our s-ALD grown thin film LiPON electrolyte having a Li-ion conductivity >10-7 S/cm, low electronic conductivity (<10-12 S/cm). Such electrolyte is also relevant for the development of protection layers in liquid and polymer electrolyte-based Li-ion batteries, as well as for enabling thin-film planar and 3D solid-state batteries with ultra-thin electrolyte layers.

References:

1. S. Myung et al., ACS Energy Lett. 2, 196–223 (2017).
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Nanocellulose as sustainable packaging substrates

The development of sustainable packaging materials with lower environmental impact is an urgent need of our society. Although significant improvements have been made, it is still challenging to achieve a trade-off between eco-friendliness and both, low production costs and sufficient packaging performance. One promising material that might succeed in creating this balance is nanocellulose - a nature-derived and renewable nanomaterial that shows excellent mechanical and barrier properties. However, using nanocellulose it is quite challenging to obtain homogeneous defect free layers. The unexceptionally high viscosity and thixotropic behaviour of nanocellulose based solutions makes it difficult to deposit this material with standard coating methods. Furthermore, another crucial aspect is the high solvent content of the typical nanocellulose solution (between 99 and 95%), causing very high demands for the drying process. 

We will present our results regarding process development for this demanding material. Using innovative drying technology and optimized coating methods we were able to implement the fabrication of nanocellulose coated paperboard at pilot scale.

Printed electronics for wearable applications

This presentation will explain the work performed at Holst Centre in the field of printed electronics for wearable applications. Using screen printing of stretchable pastes onto stretchable substrates, prototypes for medical and garment applications are being developed. For this, a good insight in material performance is needed, ranging from stretchability of the paste and substrate to e.g. performance of the electrodes to measure heartbeat and ECG signals. Together with our partners and customers, we work together to further improve these mat gain more insight in current materials and develop new applications.

FlexFunction2Sustain: An Open Innovation Ecosystem for Sustainable Nano-functionalized Plastic and Paper Surfaces

Plastic and paper based materials are used in a wide range of daily life products. Their applications represent well established multi-billion Euro markets (e.g. packaging, furniture surfaces, membrane-based filter systems, medical products etc.). New business opportunities arise from replacing glass and metal by nano-functionalized plastic or paper surfaces in many products. 

FlexFunction2Sustain is the first European Initiative to support Plastics and Paper Processing Industry in overcoming challenges of improving environmental footprint and entering the digital age while offering new material functionalities through a sustainable Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB).  FlexFunction2Sustain connects complementary pilot lines to a set of 9 connected lab-2-fab facilities covering all major nano-surface processing techniques for (flexible) plastic and paper surfaces and membranes. 

This presentation will discuss technical challenges and solutions for sustainable plastic products based on bio-degradable or fully recyclable polymers. Considerations for a sustainable business model of an open innovation ecosystems will be presented as a basement to support innovative SMEs and industries by drastically reducing time and effort for proceeding through the innovation chain from a product idea to market success.

Integrated functions from the line – smart composites manufactured continuously

Enabling Intelligence in Nano-manufacturing of Organic & Printed Electronics by In-Line Metrology and Control

The reliable manufacturing of flexible Organic Electronic devices by large scale Roll-to-Roll printing processes is largely dependent on the homogeneous and reproducible fabrication of printed nanomaterials with stable functional properties (optical, electrical, structural) and interface quality over large areas. In this presentation, we report our results for the reliable manufacturing of printed nanomaterials and devices for Organic and Printed Electronic devices, based on the implementation of intelligent in-line optical metrology tools. Moreover, we report on the development of intelligent modelling procedures that can extract from single very fast optical in-line measurements significant information such as film quality, morphology, degradation traces and film thickness.

New drying technologies

The company Drytec is actively developing dryer technologies. In our präsentation we would like to show you our dryer types and the individual advantages. The nozzle has a great influence on the drying behaviour of different products. Here there are different performance data of the nozzles. Here, too, we would like to present them to you and show you the possible applications. In this area, we have developed a new overhead technology.