Henkel, a Germany-based adhesives and materials company, now shares a battery lab with CALB, a China-based battery manufacturer, in the city of Changzhou, China. The two signed a Memorandum of Understanding, and their joint Battery Innovation Center, about 400 square meters in size. It sits inside CALB's pilot-scale production facility in the Jintan District, a prominent battery-industry hub.

Its purpose is to cut the time it takes to qualify new battery materials, from concept to the production line. Joint teams will formulate and characterize advanced polymer-based materials, optimize dispensing and assembly processes, and test performance through digital modeling and simulation. Linking that digital work with physical testing and pilot-scale production is meant to surface promising solutions earlier and reduce development iterations.

The pace of China's vehicle market sets the urgency. China sold 16.49 million new energy vehicles in 2025, representing 47.9 percent of all new vehicle sales, and battery makers are now redesigning cell and pack architectures faster than conventional qualification cycles allow. Under the three-year cooperation framework, the partners plan to bring together more than 30 specialists across material development, cell design, application testing and scale-up. Work will start with adhesive technologies and application solutions for new energy vehicle batteries, and the first joint material development project has already reached core development cycles of approximately three months.

For Henkel, the case rests on local speed. “China’s electric mobility market is advancing rapidly, and customers need locally developed solutions that can keep pace with changing requirements,” said Arthur Fong, Vice President Automotive Components Asia-Pacific at Henkel. CALB sees the center as a deeper technology tie. “Henkel’s advanced battery application technologies, digital engineering and simulation expertise complement our strengths in battery development and manufacturing,” said Liu Jingyu, Chairwoman of CALB.

The reach extends beyond China. The companies said that validated know-how from the center could be applied to customer projects across Asia-Pacific, subject to market requirements and project needs, and Henkel expects insights from the work to strengthen its global battery capabilities.

Henkel operates an Automotive Components business that supplies advanced materials and application expertise to battery makers, while CALB brings battery development and pilot production capabilities to the partnership.