AlCu™ Aluminium-Copper
Bi-Metal Bonding
- STL have developed a proprietary cold-cladding process that now enables us to produce AlCu™ Aluminium-Copper bimetal strip.
- The innovative Aluminium-Copper bonding technique now has great potential for busbar technology found within the battery packs of electric vehicles.
- The foundation is the successful development of a bonding technique that overcomes the challenge of Aluminium’s high reactivity to oxygen.

AlCu™ Aluminium-Copper Bi-Metal Bonding
STL innovation has led to us creating a proprietary cold-cladding process that we can now use to produce AlCu Aluminium-Copper bimetal strip. Also available is Nickel inlay, obviating the need for expensive electro plating.
The foundation for the cold-cladding process was the successful development of a cold bonding technique that overcomes the challenge of Aluminium’s high reactivity to oxygen. This makes it very difficult to bond hot due to the formation of intermetallics, which cause high resistance and brittleness in the joint.
STL’s innovative Aluminium-Copper bonding technique has great potential for industry, particularly within our production of bi-metallic busbar technology, found within the battery packs of electric vehicles.
- Metallic busbars are traditionally housed inside switchgear, panel boards and busway enclosures.
- In addition, our development of an optimised set of parameters for joining Aluminium to Copper has the capacity for further EV associated purposes beyond that of connectors, including anode and cathode parts with common connector materials for laser welding.
- The production of bi-metallic busbars – traditionally housed inside switchgear, panel boards and busway enclosures – represents a significant opportunity, given the worldwide transition to EV usage.
- STL are at the forefront of innovating busbar technology for use within the EV industry and welcome conversations with other organisations within the global EV supply chain.