In-FORM: all posts

All posts for the in-FORM project

Follow all developments of the in-FORM in-situ platform at the Balder beamline, MAX IV Laboratory

First sucessful multimodal in-situ experiments with the newly developed in-FORM coating device

First sucessful multimodal in-situ experiments with the newly developed in-FORM coating device

We performed first in-situ coating experiments where we were able to follow the formation of metal-halide perovskites in-situ by means of combined multimodal XAS, XRD, UV-vis and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The newly developed in-situ coating setup was recently integrated into the Balder beamline at MAX IV and can perform coating, gas quenching and annealing experiment in an inert gas environment. First tests of in-situ measurements show highly statisfying data quality for XAS and XRD.

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First fully automated coating with newly developed in-situ slot-die coater

First fully automated coating with newly developed in-situ slot-die coater

We were able to perform our first test coatings with our recently developed slot-die coationg system. The system is now completely assembled and mounted inside an inert atmosphere box. Everything is remotely controllable via a scriptable coating command line software based on Python. This gives full remote control over the whole coating and annealing process. The system was tested by coating a thin-film of black water based ink onto a 30m polyimide substrate. The coating was performed at room temperature with subsequent annealing on our annealing stage -which is included into the roll-to-roll setup- at 50 °C. See a video…

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Sealed inert-atmosphere environment for coating processes

Sealed inert-atmosphere environment for coating processes

The picture documents the construction phase of a sealed environment that will encapsulate the coating device and part of the scientific instrument in an inert atmosphere in order to prevent the exposure of sensitive inks to oxygen and humidity and also to protect the operators from dangerous chemicals and solvent vapours that may form during the coating operation. It consists of an alluminum frame and acrylic glass walls with silicone sealed gaps with an internal volume of about 0.6 m³. This volume will be filled with inert gases and the inner atmosphere will have < 1 ppm of oxygen and…

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Drive-train assembling and testing

Drive-train assembling and testing

In this phase of the project, the main components of the drive-train (motors, active and passive rolls, frame, bearings and shafts) have been produced and delivered to MAX IV laboratory. Now it’s time to assemble and test everything. The drive-train of the slot-die coater device will have the task of motion and control of the flexible substrate: this includes controlling the coating velocity and regulating the web tension, both crucial aspects in order to obtain a precise and homogeneous ink deposition and coating process. The motion control task is assigned to 2 servo motors with proper gears that can regulate…

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Slot-die head received from FOM Technologies

Slot-die head received from FOM Technologies

Today we received from our project collaborator FOM Technologies a 40mm slot-die head. It is made of hardened stainless steel, has interchangeable shims and, in the present configuration, can coat a single stripe of 10 mm working width with a dead volume of less than 50 μL. A slot-die head is one of the core components of every slot-die-coating equipment, both with flexible or rigid substrate, and roll-to-roll or fixed-plane geometries. A slot-die head provides one or multiple channels for a homogeneous distribution of the ink across the width of the coated substrate. The volume of the internal chamber, and…

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First conceptual design of the in-FORM coating system is ready

First conceptual design of the in-FORM coating system is ready

The first conceptual design of the in-FORM slot-die coating platform and possible disposition of scientific instrumentation is ready! This design will be now presented and discussed with the project team and with community stakeholders, such as FOM Technologies (Company, commercially developing and producing lab based slot-die coating system), Ångström Advanced Battery Centre, Uppsala university (SDC for battery electrode materials), Hybrid Materials Formation and Scaling Group, HZB (SDC for hybrid perovskite photovoltaics). After this discussion phase the finalized design will be converted into technical drawings and the production of the components can begin. This is an extremely small-footprint coating device, designed…

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in-FORM Project funded by SSF

in-FORM Project funded by SSF

The in-FORM project was funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) for the SSF-Works call 2018. The project team receives a total funding of 7.702.808 kr for the development of a in-situ solution processing platform for energy materials at the Balder beamline of MAX IV for the next 3 years.

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