On January 20, 2026, a pilot battery research line at a South Korean energy institute published results showing that a tungsten steel cutting blade achieved longitudinal slitting tolerances of ±0.05mm on 120µm thick anode electrodes, because electrode overhang is a leading cause of internal short circuits in pouch cells. Over 50 kilometers of slitting at 35 meters per minute, the tungsten carbide blade maintained cut edge straightness within 0.07mm peak-to-valley, while standard carbide slitters deviated to 0.32mm after just 8 kilometers due to uneven wear. Optical microscopy revealed that the ultra-hard cutting blade produced virtually no copper foil burr extrusion—below 2µm versus 12µm for conventional blades. This improvement in edge quality is expected to reduce field failure rates in high-energy-density batteries by an estimated 17%. The blade’s proprietary gradient hardness, ranging from 91 HRA at the surface to 85 HRA at the core, provided both wear resistance and fracture toughness, preventing the chipping that plagued previous attempts at precision slitting. For gigafactories scaling electrode production, tungsten steel slitting blades offer a critical quality differentiator.