Kurimoto Iron Works and Hitachi High-Tech Begin Collaboration to Optimize Kneading Process Conditions Utilizing Kneading Data and Physical AI
Kurimoto Iron Works and Hitachi High-Tech have initiated a collaboration to optimize the kneading process conditions in battery manufacturing. This partnership leverages Kurimoto's extensive kneading technology and operational data with Hitachi High-Tech's analysis and AI capabilities, including Physical AI, to stabilize high-solid content slurry production and shorten development periods, ultimately improving battery performance and yield.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: May 11, 2026 at 20:12
- 🔍 Collected: May 11, 2026 at 11:31
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: May 12, 2026 at 05:17 (17h 45m after Collected)
Kurimoto Iron Works, Ltd. (hereinafter, Kurimoto Iron Works) and Hitachi High-Tech Corporation (hereinafter, Hitachi High-Tech) have commenced a collaboration (hereinafter, this collaboration) aimed at optimizing the conditions of the kneading*1 process in battery manufacturing.
In this collaboration, addressing the challenge that optimizing kneading process conditions in the slurry*2 manufacturing process, which significantly impacts battery performance, heavily relies on advanced expertise and experience, Kurimoto Iron Works, a pioneer in the kneading field, will integrate its long-cultivated kneading technology, domain knowledge, and abundant operational data with Hitachi High-Tech's analysis and AI/informatics technologies, utilizing Physical AI*3. This joint effort will focus on optimizing the kneading process to ensure stable supply of high-solid content*4 slurry and shortening development periods. This initiative aims to advance and streamline high-quality slurry manufacturing processes, contributing to improved battery performance and enhanced yield*5 during production ramp-up.
■Expected effects from verification in this collaboration
- Reduction in prototyping and verification man-hours
- Increased efficiency and sophistication in kneading condition examination
- Stable production of high-quality slurry
- Quality stabilization and productivity improvement in the mass production phase
*1 Kneading: Mixing multiple substances uniformly to create a new substance with new properties.
*2 Slurry: A mixture of multiple battery materials such as powders and liquids, kneaded together with a solvent. It is applied to current collectors like aluminum or copper, dried, and used as an electrode.
*3 Physical AI: Developed and provided in collaboration with Hitachi, Ltd.
*4 High-solid content: Refers to a high proportion of non-volatile components remaining after volatile components like solvents are removed from a mixture, allowing high performance with a small coating amount.
*5 Yield: The ratio of good products among manufactured products (Yield = Number of good products / Total number of manufactured products).
Background
In recent years, the demand for secondary batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, has remained high in home appliances, smart devices, and industrial equipment, necessitating efficiency improvements and quality stabilization in manufacturing processes. Among these, the kneading process, which uniformly mixes multiple materials to produce slurry, is considered a crucial step that affects the precision of electrode thickness and density, thus influencing battery performance. However, continuously producing uniform slurry under optimal kneading conditions requires high technical skills and know-how, making it a difficult and challenging process.
Kurimoto Iron Works possesses advanced kneading technology and contributes to accelerating development processes in the chemical industry and next-generation battery material fields. Their kneading process, utilizing the "KRC Needer" twin-screw continuous kneader, allows for adjustment of kneading intensity by combining various paddle shapes within the kneader according to the purpose. Leveraging this feature, even raw materials prone to aggregation can be dispersed and homogenized, minimizing quality variations between lots in continuous production and achieving both quality and productivity improvements. On the other hand, deriving the optimal paddle arrangement involves countless combinations and trade-offs. Furthermore, setting optimal kneading conditions in combination with operating conditions has been a challenge relying on advanced expertise and experience.
Hitachi High-Tech has provided analysis and analytical equipment to a wide range of fields including batteries, semiconductors, and chemistry, possessing quality control, evaluation, and measurement technologies tailored to customer needs, along with industry knowledge. Leveraging digital technology, they have also offered solutions*7 for material development and manufacturing processes utilizing Materials Informatics (MI)*6, supporting the DX promotion of manufacturing customers as "One Hitachi."
This collaboration aims to solve challenges related to quality and production efficiency in uniform slurry manufacturing by integrating the technologies, know-how, knowledge, and digital technologies of both companies in setting kneading conditions, which previously relied on advanced expertise and experience.
*6 Materials Informatics: A technology that integrates and analyzes data such as material composition, structure, physical properties, and experimental conditions, utilizing AI and data science to predict material properties and design optimal materials.
*7 News release announced in January 2025.
Specific Initiatives
(1) Optimization of Kneading Process Conditions Utilizing Hitachi's Proprietary Generative AI Technology
By inputting public knowledge obtained from patents and academic papers, along with proprietary knowledge extracted from Kurimoto Iron Works' kneader manuals and paddle information, into Hitachi's unique generative AI technology, the collaboration will propose optimal kneader settings and kneading process control conditions for producing ideal slurry. This will enable providing concrete directions based on knowledge, even when sufficient prototype data from actual machines is not available. This technology aims to shorten development periods and reduce the number of trials and experiments.
(2) Process Informatics
In this collaboration, addressing the challenge that optimizing kneading process conditions in the slurry*2 manufacturing process, which significantly impacts battery performance, heavily relies on advanced expertise and experience, Kurimoto Iron Works, a pioneer in the kneading field, will integrate its long-cultivated kneading technology, domain knowledge, and abundant operational data with Hitachi High-Tech's analysis and AI/informatics technologies, utilizing Physical AI*3. This joint effort will focus on optimizing the kneading process to ensure stable supply of high-solid content*4 slurry and shortening development periods. This initiative aims to advance and streamline high-quality slurry manufacturing processes, contributing to improved battery performance and enhanced yield*5 during production ramp-up.
■Expected effects from verification in this collaboration
- Reduction in prototyping and verification man-hours
- Increased efficiency and sophistication in kneading condition examination
- Stable production of high-quality slurry
- Quality stabilization and productivity improvement in the mass production phase
*1 Kneading: Mixing multiple substances uniformly to create a new substance with new properties.
*2 Slurry: A mixture of multiple battery materials such as powders and liquids, kneaded together with a solvent. It is applied to current collectors like aluminum or copper, dried, and used as an electrode.
*3 Physical AI: Developed and provided in collaboration with Hitachi, Ltd.
*4 High-solid content: Refers to a high proportion of non-volatile components remaining after volatile components like solvents are removed from a mixture, allowing high performance with a small coating amount.
*5 Yield: The ratio of good products among manufactured products (Yield = Number of good products / Total number of manufactured products).
Background
In recent years, the demand for secondary batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, has remained high in home appliances, smart devices, and industrial equipment, necessitating efficiency improvements and quality stabilization in manufacturing processes. Among these, the kneading process, which uniformly mixes multiple materials to produce slurry, is considered a crucial step that affects the precision of electrode thickness and density, thus influencing battery performance. However, continuously producing uniform slurry under optimal kneading conditions requires high technical skills and know-how, making it a difficult and challenging process.
Kurimoto Iron Works possesses advanced kneading technology and contributes to accelerating development processes in the chemical industry and next-generation battery material fields. Their kneading process, utilizing the "KRC Needer" twin-screw continuous kneader, allows for adjustment of kneading intensity by combining various paddle shapes within the kneader according to the purpose. Leveraging this feature, even raw materials prone to aggregation can be dispersed and homogenized, minimizing quality variations between lots in continuous production and achieving both quality and productivity improvements. On the other hand, deriving the optimal paddle arrangement involves countless combinations and trade-offs. Furthermore, setting optimal kneading conditions in combination with operating conditions has been a challenge relying on advanced expertise and experience.
Hitachi High-Tech has provided analysis and analytical equipment to a wide range of fields including batteries, semiconductors, and chemistry, possessing quality control, evaluation, and measurement technologies tailored to customer needs, along with industry knowledge. Leveraging digital technology, they have also offered solutions*7 for material development and manufacturing processes utilizing Materials Informatics (MI)*6, supporting the DX promotion of manufacturing customers as "One Hitachi."
This collaboration aims to solve challenges related to quality and production efficiency in uniform slurry manufacturing by integrating the technologies, know-how, knowledge, and digital technologies of both companies in setting kneading conditions, which previously relied on advanced expertise and experience.
*6 Materials Informatics: A technology that integrates and analyzes data such as material composition, structure, physical properties, and experimental conditions, utilizing AI and data science to predict material properties and design optimal materials.
*7 News release announced in January 2025.
Specific Initiatives
(1) Optimization of Kneading Process Conditions Utilizing Hitachi's Proprietary Generative AI Technology
By inputting public knowledge obtained from patents and academic papers, along with proprietary knowledge extracted from Kurimoto Iron Works' kneader manuals and paddle information, into Hitachi's unique generative AI technology, the collaboration will propose optimal kneader settings and kneading process control conditions for producing ideal slurry. This will enable providing concrete directions based on knowledge, even when sufficient prototype data from actual machines is not available. This technology aims to shorten development periods and reduce the number of trials and experiments.
(2) Process Informatics