Validate your process before committing to production equipment. IMC offers lab and pilot-scale coating, calendering, and slitting systems built with the same precision as our production machines and incorporating the flexibility required for process development.
Our in-house laboratory in Birmingham, Alabama is available for coating trials, calendering tests, and process development with your actual materials and formulations. Establish coating windows, evaluate drying profiles, validate calender settings, and generate the process data you need to specify a production system with confidence.
The path from lab to production
Many of our customer relationships begin in the lab. You bring your materials and your target specifications. We run trials on our equipment, develop the process parameters together, and produce samples for your evaluation. When you're ready to scale, the production system is designed around validated process knowledge — not assumptions. This approach reduces commissioning time, process risk, and time to qualified production.
Lab systems — establish the process
Compact lab machines for universities, R&D centers, and early-stage development. Minimal material, maximum process data.
Lab coaters
Benchtop comma and reverse roll coating, with slot die and gravure options for formulation screening and sample production.
Lab calenders
Benchtop compression and densification for material testing and initial process development.
Lab slitters
Narrow-web precision slitting for sample preparation and early process work.
Lab powder mill Dry electrode
Solvent-free dry electrode process development — powder fibrillation, free-standing film formation, and lamination to foil.
Pilot systems — write the specification
Production-representative machines at pilot scale: real forces, real speeds, recipe-driven controls. Where scale-up decisions are validated and production specs get written.
Pilot coating lines
330–500 mm web; slot die, comma, or gravure heads, explosion-proof Class 1 Group D configurations for NMP and solvent work.
Pilot calenders
300 mm+ web at up to 136 metric tons — production-relevant densification with heated rolls and closed-loop gap.
Pilot slitters
Production slit head and tension architecture at pilot scale. Burr-free demonstrated on Cu and Al foil.
Pilot powder mill
Dry electrode processing at pilot scale — powder-to-film formation and lamination at production-relevant forces.
Custom pilot line configurations
For customers who need to validate multi-step processes, IMC designs integrated pilot lines that combine coating, drying, calendering, and slitting at pilot scale. These compact systems replicate the full production process flow in a smaller footprint, allowing you to optimize the entire process chain before scaling to production.