Comprehensive equipment company SFA recently confirmed on the 17th that it has received an order for a 3D CT scanner dedicated to LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries from major domestic clients.
The company is reported to have begun large-scale supply of the scanner to European secondary battery clients at the recommendation of overseas automobile manufacturers.
The 3D CT scanner is equipment that detects explosion and fire risks inside secondary batteries using three-dimensional modeling methods.
This achievement comes at a time when domestic and international secondary battery clients are actively considering investments in mass production lines for LFP batteries, which have relatively high cost competitiveness, due to the prolonged electric vehicle chasm (temporary demand slowdown).
Industry insiders believe that introducing 3D CT scanners for low-cost secondary batteries is inevitable to prevent potential quality issues and stabilize processing procedures.
Despite the secondary battery manufacturing line producing one cell every 4 seconds, it is known that the inspection speed of existing 3D CT scanners supplied by global competitors reached a staggering 7 minutes per cell, which is why sample inspection was chosen as the best option. SFA has fused technologies such as high precision and high-speed scanning to be the first in the world to reduce the inspection speed to 4 seconds. This means all cells can now be inspected in real-time for explosion and fire risks, not just samples.
An SFA official noted, "The new concept 3D CT scanner is being supplied to all types of existing ternary (nickel, cobalt, manganese) batteries, including prismatic, pouch, and cylindrical types, and we have expanded our supply to LFP batteries following those for next-generation batteries known as all-solid-state batteries."
According to SFA, the accumulated order volume for scanners from the end of 2020 to the present amounts to approximately 120 billion won.