SBIR-STTR Award

The Army is one of the major users of Li batteries, as they are reliable, have high energy density and shelf life. Present lithium systems are not safe and require special care and caution by the user. An Ultra-safe, high rate, high energy density Li/Mn02 cell packaged in soft pouch material is being proposed for development of BA-5590/U cell. This new system is safe, low cost and has potential to replace all of the present primary cells/batteries used by the Army. A phase I program to prove the feasibility of BA-5590/U cell with Li/Mn02 chemistry and U.B.I.'s patented safety separator, and package with a soft pouch material is proposed. During this progra, work will focus on hermetic sealing, manufacturing process and fabrication of high rate cathode. Also, assembled cells will be evaluated for electrical performance and safety. U.B.I is uniquely qualified to conduct this program, as we have in place manufacturing process necessary for manufacture of Li/Mn02 batteries and owns a safety-shutdown spearator process. During phase II, U.B.I. will fabricate BA-5590/U cells and assemble them in to a battery, then evaluate battery for electrical performance and prove use of Li/MN02 chemistry and soft pouch packaging material to replace present chemistry. An Ultra-safe, high rate, high energy density battery with low cost is desirable to Army to reduce thier cost without sacrificing safety, reliability and performance

Keywords:
lithium batteries, pouch cell, li-mn02 battery, flat-pack cell, ba-5590/u battery

The Army is one of the major users of lithium batteries, as they are reliable, have high energy density at various extreme temp., and long shelf life. Present lithium systems used by the Army are not as safe as they would like, also these systems are costly. They require special care in handling and caution by the user. A high energy density, high rate, ultra-safe Li/MnO2 cell utilizing soft pouch material for cell packaging was proposed by Ultralife Batteries, Inc. Phase I program showed the feasibility of this approach to potentially solve the aforementioned difference. The Phase I program is near completion and is very successful. The highlights of our Phase I work utilizing BA-5590 cell configuration are i) BA-5590 pouch cell (initial design) delivered up to 11 Amphour capacity, ii) BA-5590 pouch cells did not vent or leak during short-ciruit, iii) pouch material selected has good seal integrity with <1% wt. loss after 55'C/1 week storage. These results are encouraging. Also, our initial analysis has shown that the cell perfromance could be improved by approx. 30%, if the cell components were to be optimized and cell design innovations identified implementation. This program will establish the baseline for the development of high energy density, ultra-safe, high rate cells/battery configurations, with probable future low manufacting costs

Keywords:
lithium batteries pouch cell li-mno2 battery flat-pack cell ba-5590/u battery