Electrolyte Membrane Pre-Treatment with Clip Tensioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Wrinkling occurs during cutting and boiling of electrolyte membranes, leading to non-uniform impurity removal, as described in existing techniques like JP 2020-109215 A.
Innovation Solution
A pre-treatment unit with a cutting device, boiling device, and film tensioning device that uses clips to maintain tension and gaps between electrolyte membrane pieces, ensuring uniform cutting and boiling to prevent wrinkling and enhance impurity removal.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If the electrolyte membrane is cut into pieces, then it can be processed individually for boiling treatment, but wrinkling occurs during cutting and boiling
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies tension to the electrolyte membrane during cutting and boiling processes. By changing the physical state parameter (applying tensile force), the membrane is kept taut to prevent wrinkling while being cut into pieces and subjected to boiling treatment, ensuring uniform impurity removal without shape distortion.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies tension to the electrolyte membrane before cutting occurs. This preliminary action of tensioning prevents wrinkling from occurring during the subsequent cutting and boiling processes, maintaining the membrane's shape integrity throughout the treatment.
2Productivity
If adjacent electrolyte membranes are boiled together, then processing efficiency is improved, but they tend to stick to each other causing wrinkling
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies tension to the electrolyte membranes during boiling treatment. By maintaining tensile force on each membrane piece, they remain separated and taut during the boiling process, preventing them from sticking together while still allowing efficient batch processing of multiple pieces simultaneously.
3Ease of manufacture
If the electrolyte membrane is not tensioned during cutting, then the cutting process is simpler, but wrinkling occurs making uniform impurity removal difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies tension to the electrolyte membrane during cutting by hanging it vertically. This simple mechanical approach of changing the physical state (from horizontal to vertical hanging) maintains the membrane taut during cutting, preventing wrinkling and ensuring uniform impurity removal without complicating the cutting process significantly.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively prevents wrinkling and ensures uniform impurity removal from electrolyte membranes, facilitating homogeneous metal film formation on substrates.
Implementation Method 1
a boiling tank for immersing the plurality of pieces of the electrolyte membrane together with the fixing jig and boiling the plurality of pieces of the electrolyte membrane
Implementation Method 2
The fixing jig is provided with locking portions that lock the pair of clips attached to each piece of the electrolyte membrane to the fixing jig such that the plurality of pieces of the electrolyte membrane is stretched with a gap therebetween
Data Source
AI summary
A pre-treatment unit includes a cutting device in which a cut position is set, in which a strip-shaped electrolyte membrane is cut to have a predetermined length; a boiling device including a fixing jig for detachably fixing a plurality of pieces of an electrolyte membrane with a gap therebetween; and a pair of clips attached to the strip-shaped electrolyte membrane across a width direction of the strip-shaped electrolyte membrane. The fixing jig is provided with locking portions that lock the pair of clips attached to each piece of the electrolyte membrane to the fixing jig such that the plurality of pieces of the electrolyte membrane is stretched with a gap therebetween.