Manufacturing Efficiency and Capability:Improvement of Flow Properties of Thermal Battery Component Powders

The premise of this work is that the main barrier to optimizing battery performance lies in understanding the relationship between bulk solids and particle flow properties and the flow into the die.Our hypothesis: an increase in quality battery production can be achieved if product preparation can be optimized and/or the die filling process controlled.Since die compression is mainly one-dimensional, the structure and uniformity of what goes into the die will affect the structure and uniformity of the pellet compacts.We believe three main causes may be responsible for non-uniformity issues in die filling: segregation of material by component or by particle size during die filling, generation of shear planes during die scraping and filling which create zones of lower density, gas flow during compression of the early stage of die filling to cause channeling.We will measure flow segregation, cohesive and compressive flow properties of a key cathode (cobalt disulfide) and separator powders that will allow calculation of these effects, create compacts with four different fill methods and analyze the compact for uniformity and battery quality to correlate with the test results and modeling.Approved for Public Release | 17-MDA-9219 (31 May 17)