📋 Tender Overview
Grant agreement ID: 101318702
EC signature date
7 September 2026
Start date
1 October 2026
End date
30 September 2030
Objective
DRY-SENSE addresses a critical bottleneck in Europe’s transition from conventional lithium-ion batteries to next-generation solid-state batteries (SSBs), which are essential for high-performance, safety-critical applications such as aviation, maritime transport, rail and premium mobility. While SSBs promise higher energy density, improved safety and longer lifetime, their industrial deployment is constrained by wet, solvent-based manufacturing processes that are energy-intensive, costly and poorly compatible with solid-state materials. DRY-SENSE aims to demonstrate a fully dry, solvent-free and energy-efficient manufacturing route for solid-state batteries at TRL 6 in a pilot coating-line industrial environment, enabling the upgrading of existing Generation-3 lithium-ion production lines through targeted retrofitting. The project combines advanced battery materials—including silicon-rich anodes, cobalt-reduced or cobalt-free cathodes, and next-generation polymer electrolytes—with fully dry manufacturing processes, notably multi-material extrusion and advanced roll-to-roll systems for electrode coating and electrolyte production. These innovations are supported by advanced digitalisation, including inline sensing, artificial intelligence and digital twins, to ensure product quality, minimise defects and optimise process efficiency under industrially relevant conditions. Pilot-scale validation will deliver 10 Ah solid-state cells, providing robust evidence of technical, economic and environmental feasibility. DRY-SENSE is expected to reduce manufacturing energy consumption by up to 40–50% and production costs compared to current lithium-ion processes, while reducing dependence on critical raw materials. Finally, the project delivers a replicable industrial blueprint for an integrated, low-impact manufacturing process, achieving higher resource efficiency, fewer defects and a lower CO2 intensity, supporting future gigafactory deployment across Europe.
