Toll Manufacturing Minute with CPS: Throughput Without Tradeoffs: Scaling Advanced Powder Processing for Energy Materials

TL; DR: EPISOde OVERVIEW

CPS President Gregg Shemanski explains why scaling throughput on high-performance energy materials isn't a single-variable problem — and how CPS's process systems approach, installed equipment, and 44 years of expertise help customers hit spec every time, at any volume:

• The real risk: Drift rarely comes from one bad setting; it comes from changing one parameter without accounting for how it interacts with all the others
• Know your material first: Particle size, density, shape, moisture, and flow behavior must all be characterized before a machine is ever turned on
• Benchtop to production: Pilot-scale trials de-risk scale-up and protect costly production runs
• Data-driven consistency: Real-time monitoring of critical operating parameters — up to 3x per second — keeps product on spec and catches deviation early
• The tolling advantage: Installed capacity, multi-machine expertise, and engineering depth compress development timelines and eliminate costly guesswork

When customers in the energy sector push for more throughput on battery-grade powders and functional additives, the instinct is often to turn up the power, increase feed rate, or move straight to a larger machine. CPS President Gregg Shemanski has seen that approach go sideways many times over his 44-year career, and in this episode of Toll Manufacturing Minute, he explains exactly why, and what to do instead.

It's a Process System, Not a Process Point

The most important concept Gregg returns to throughout the conversation: Batch optimization isn't a one-variable problem. Air flows, velocities, pressures, temperatures, energy per kilogram of product — all of these interact, and changing one without accounting for the others is where spec drift begins.

As Gregg explains, if you know the key operating parameters of your machine and keep them in correct proportion as throughput increases, output quality holds. If you're off on even one of them, you might find you're generating too many fines, losing top-size control, or widening your distribution in ways that disqualify the product for its end application, especially in energy storage, where particle morphology directly affects charge density and power transfer.

Why Energy Materials Are Particularly Unforgiving

Battery-grade powders, graphite, cathode and anode materials, and functional additives come with extremely tight specifications for good reason. In energy storage, the goal is maximizing energy density within a fixed volume. That means particle shape, size distribution, bulk density, and surface area all have to land in tight windows: too coarse and you risk shorts; too fine and you impede flow and reduce energy density. Spherical particles pack better and transfer energy more efficiently; wide distributions undermine both.

Gregg notes that many R&D chemists arrive at CPS without having completed a full material characterization — no bulk density check, no surface area analysis, no fines distribution curve. That's the first thing CPS addresses. Understanding what you're starting with is the prerequisite for knowing how processing will change it.

Where Self-Optimization Usually Goes Wrong

When customers try to optimize throughput on their own, the most common mistake isn't adjusting the wrong variable; it's not fully understanding how the variables they're watching interact with variables they're not watching. Pressure drops, heat zones, airflow dynamics across the system: these are easy to overlook and capable of causing real problems, especially with chemically reactive or heat-sensitive materials.

The "just put a bigger motor on it" approach is a classic example. More horsepower might increase throughput, but if the rest of the system — classifier speeds, air volumes, feed rates — isn't adjusted proportionally, the particle distribution will shift. More power in doesn't mean the same product out.

The Right Way to Scale: BenchTOP to Pilot to Production

CPS's scale-up methodology follows a deliberate path: feasibility bench trial → pilot scale → production trial. At each stage, the critical operating parameters are validated and documented. Pilot-scale runs provide enough material for customers to validate their own downstream processes while keeping material usage and risk contained. Only when confidence is high, either from the trial pathway or from deep prior experience with a material class, does CPS recommend moving directly to production scale.

The payoff is real. One customer came in believing their existing mill and process was the only viable approach. CPS proposed an alternative method and delivered the same throughput rate at 240% less power consumption, with tighter, more consistent particle distribution from the first gram out.

Real-Time Data as a Quality Gate

CPS monitors critical process parameters (temperatures, pressures, air flows, kilowatts, material weight in mill) in real time, collecting data up to three times per second. Upper and lower control limits are established from both theoretical calculations and empirical testing. When parameters stay within those limits, the output is predictable.

The Tolling Advantage for Energy Materials Customers

For energy materials manufacturers, the tolling model offers something in-house processing often can't: a wide variety of already-installed, already-optimized equipment operated by engineers who understand exactly how each machine behaves. When a customer's R&D vision evolves (say, round particles instead of flat ones turn out to perform significantly better) CPS can swap in a different machine the same day rather than sourcing, installing, and learning a new piece of capital equipment over months.

That installed capacity, combined with engineering depth and a focus on asking "what do you want?" rather than "what have you been making?" is what compresses development timelines and gets energy materials customers to commercially viable, repeatable production faster.

What Process Engineers Should Do First

Gregg's practical advice for operations leaders struggling with spec drift as they push throughput: Start by fully characterizing your material. Not just D50 or D97 but density, flow behavior, moisture, particle shape, and distribution. Know what you're working with before you touch a machine parameter. Pick your most critical spec parameter and protect it, but don't lose sight of the others. And before making changes to a production-scale machine, go back to a small unit, validate the parameter change at bench scale, and confirm it doesn't affect downstream performance. Then scale with confidence.

Learn more about CPS’s powder processing capabilities by reading Powder Processing for Batteries.

KEY TAKEAWAYS