Samsung SDI signs separator supply agreement with W-Scope

Samsung SDI headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. [Courtesy of Samsung SDI]

South Korea’s Samsung SDI has signed a separator supply agreement with W-Scope, the Japan-based parent company of Korean separator manufacturer WCP. WCP is expected to supply the majority of Samsung SDI’s separator volume in the future.

According to Reuters on Tuesday, W-Scope announced on Monday that it has signed a contract with Samsung SDI to supply separators for five years from this year to 2027. The volume of separators to be supplied by W-Scope is 4 billion square meters.

Market tracker SNE Research estimated that with each separator covering approximately 7 million square meters per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of 4680 cylindrical batteries, this contract could enable the production of around 569 GWh of batteries. The estimated scale of the contract amounts to 5.1 trillion won.

SNE Research forecasts that Samsung SDI’s separator demand will reach 1.2 billion square meters in 2025 and 5.3 billion square meters in 2030, up from about 900 million square meters this year, and that WCP will account for more than half of Samsung SDI’s separator demand by 2027.

Separators play a vital role in batteries, as they keep the cathode and anode separate while allowing lithium ions to pass through, facilitating the flow of current. This critical component is directly linked to battery safety and stability.