The Importance of Lab and Pilot Coaters
- Published: November 3, 2025
Accelerating Commercialization in the Energy Storage Space Through Joint Partnerships
By Greg Williams, Vice President Technology and Development, TC Transcontinental Advanced Coating
New products that enable advances in battery, fuel cell and electrolyzer applications are often based on manufacturing products using roll-to-roll converting processes. Converting processes such as film and membrane casting, coating, printing and laminating require significant experimentation and process learning in order to scope, optimize and scale up to fully reliable commercial production.
While this work can and often is done on wide web production converting lines, both the scale of trials and the cost of raw materials required to support this activity can slow down the development process and have a dramatic impact on the cost of development. Selecting and then relying on partners who offer lab and pilot scale capabilities can dramatically reduce the cost, the risk and the time required for these key development programs.
Let's take a look at a few scenarios:
- Base Case.
All Product and Process Development Work is done on a wide web production line. In this scenario, time must be allocated away from standard production and devoted to process development trials. Capacity loading may impact the time available for trial work. Hourly cost of the line is likely high and the ability to make experimental changes is difficult, especially if coating method changes are required which may or may not be possible depending on the configuration of the line.
Additionally, if raw materials are either costly or in short supply, they can be a limiting factor in terms of the scope of experiments that are conducted, therefore development risks may be taken that could otherwise be avoided with the opportunity for more thorough experimentation. Lastly, it is very unlikely that customers would be allowed onto the wide web production line limiting interaction and development.
- Better Case.
Process Development Work is conducted at a stand-alone pilot coating facility. Often this route will allow for flexible scheduling and reasonable costs along with the ability to run multiple levels of experimentation with great efficiency. The speed of learning can be very fast so process decisions can be made with sufficient data. The ability to replicate trial results with both ease and efficiency allows for high levels of confidence to support key decision making.
Unfortunately, once the pilot scale work is completed, commercialization then requires the transition to wider web lines at a separate facility. This can be complicated and can also be quite time consuming as it is often difficult to run trials on both pilot and production equipment in parallel and almost always involves separate teams of operating, technical and engineering support. Sometimes the transfer of learning from the pilot scale work is difficult or even impossible depending on how closely the capabilities of the wide production line mimic the capabilities of the pilot coater that is being utilized. Without an exceptional amount of planning, projects can bog down at this stage.
- Best Case.
Process Development Work is done in parallel on lab coaters (allowing closer initial joint interactions at the lab coater interface), pilot coaters and wide web lines at a single site with a successful history of product scale-up. All of the advantages seen with scenario No. 2 apply and the route to product commercialization is often both fast and straightforward as the process design support can be provided by the same staff. In addition, with the use of well designed experiments, multiple product formulation and process questions can be addressed simultaneously.
The fastest developments take full advantage of this and often involve running trials and experiments simultaneously on multiple lines. Although the cost involved in running multiple trials on multiple lines can appear high, these costs are almost always more than offset by the speed with which products can be brought to market. And ideally, this Process Development Work would be done in partnership with a capable toll and contract manufacturer with lab coaters, pilot coaters and wide web production lines staffed by experienced operating, technical and engineering personnel.
In this case the product innovator can leverage the knowledge and experience of a staff with many years of converting experience while they can focus on product and formulation design, application testing and market feedback and acceptance. This partnership can bring the skills and knowledge of both organizations to focus on fast cycle time learning with the goal of accelerating product commercialization.
In summary, multiple routes can be taken to commercialize new products in the growing Energy Management space. However, when speed to market is critical to success, partnering with an experienced toll and contract manufacturer with lab coating, pilot coating, and wide web production lines can dramatically reduce the development cycle time and unlock the key advantage of speed to market for the product innovator.
About the Author
Greg Williams joined the advanced coatings business in 1990, has since worked in various roles in technology and development and now leads TC Transcontinental's Advanced Coatings Global R&D team. He also serves the converting industry as Board Vice President of the Association for Roll-to-Roll Converters and chairs their Coating & Laminating technical committee.