Henkel AI Accelerates Battery Innovation

Battery innovation is advancing rapidly, and Henkel is playing a pivotal role in driving that progress through close collaboration with industry partners.

At The Battery Show 2025, the company presented its latest breakthroughs, including AI-driven virtual adhesives, novel debonding technologies, and digital traceability solutions supporting the circular battery economy.

Henkel’s modeling and simulation capabilities now integrate artificial intelligence to create digital twins and predictive material models. These enable earlier, more accurate decision-making during battery design, according to the company.

The company also highlighted its next-generation conductive coatings that enhance both adhesion and conductivity in battery cells.

Automotive Industries (AI) asked George Kazantzis, Corporate Vice President and Global Head of Automotive Components at Henkel Adhesive Technologies, how Henkel’s innovations are shaping the future of battery technology.

Kazantzis: A key theme in battery evolution is the drive toward higher energy density. Each new battery architecture requires tailored material solutions. Henkel’s advanced materials and digital capabilities empower battery manufacturers to achieve the next generation of safe, high-performance batteries at optimized cost and production efficiency.

Our focus is to enable scalable, reliable, and cost-effective solutions in line with evolving battery designs.

AI: How does simulation and modeling help reduce development costs?

Kazantzis: There are two dimensions to cost: development and unit cost. Traditional development cycles could take months. Today, we leverage AI to streamline formulation and validation.

We’ve developed what we call a data cube — an AI engine that predicts optimal formulations based on customer requirements, leveraging our extensive materials database. For every formulation, we understand the bill of materials and the associated performance metrics. This allows us to reverse-engineer new solutions within hours.

Once a requirement is defined, we can generate a virtual formulation and corresponding material card almost instantly.

Our simulation experts then run thermal and mechanical analyses to validate the performance digitally. In our automated formulation lab in Düsseldorf, we can produce physical samples within minutes.

This dramatically shortens development cycles, reduces costs, and ensures highly tailored, efficient formulations from the outset.

AI: How do Henkel’s conductive coatings support dry electrode manufacturing?

Kazantzis: One of the key challenges in dry electrode production has been achieving consistent adhesion on electrode surfaces, which is critical for energy transfer.

Our conductive coating technology acts as a primer, significantly enhancing adhesion and enabling improved battery performance and energy density. It also opens new pathways for scaling dry electrode processes.

AI: Can the coating also benefit the wet processes?

Kazantzis: Technically, yes. While the improvement in wet processes is incremental, the impact in dry electrode applications is far more substantial. The business case will determine the best-fit application.

AI: Are Henkel’s safety coatings a viable alternative to mica sheets?

Kazantzis: Mica sheets remain an industry standard, but they present handling and logistical challenges and are relatively costly. We have developed a sprayable liquid alternative that matches mica’s performance while offering significant advantages in automation and precision.

Our coating is applied via a proprietary flat-streaming process using a custom nozzle that ensures precise, waste-free application. The system is fully programmable and adaptable to various geometries, offering greater flexibility and cost-efficiency than conventional mica components.

AI: How is Henkel enabling battery repair and circularity with its debonding technology?

Kazantzis: We’ve introduced a structural adhesive that maintains full bonding performance but can be cleanly deb

onded using a low electrical current. This innovation supports three core applications: assembly flexibility, repairability, and circularity.

In production, components bonded with traditional adhesives are often considered non-serviceable. Our solution allows for selective debonding, enabling component repair rather than replacement.

In service, individual battery modules or cells can be replaced.

And finally, at end of life, the adhesive can be removed cleanly, allowing components to be disassembled and recycled or reused. This is a significant step toward enabling true battery circularity.

AI: How does the Path.Era ecosystem, based on Catena-X, support traceability?

Kazantzis: Henkel is a founding member of both Catena-X and Path.Era. Our involvement reflects our commitment to advancing transparency and sustainability across the battery value chain.

Given our broad materials portfolio and engagement across multiple tiers of the battery industry, we take traceability seriously.

We are building digital product passports to track the lifecycle of materials from sourcing to end-of-life, helping the industry meet regulatory and sustainability requirements while setting new standards in data transparency.

AI: What’s next for Henkel in automotive innovation?

Kazantzis: The transformation of the automotive industry is accelerating, particularly at the intersection of mobility and electronics. Vehicles are becoming more intelligent, compact, and software-defined—essentially evolving into high-performance consumer electronics.

Henkel brings deep expertise from the consumer electronics, industrial, and data infrastructure sectors, where we are already a technology leader. This cross-industry experience enables us to adapt and scale cutting-edge technologies into automotive applications faster than ever.

Looking ahead, we aim not only to be first to market but to be a true enabler. By leveraging AI and advanced chemistry, we support our customers in enhancing miniaturization, functionality, structural integrity, and performance—all at accelerated development speeds.