Low-Cost Thermal Battery

Thermal batteries are often the battery of choice when very long shelf life is needed, and accessibility to the battery is limited. Improvements are sought for achieving improved electrochemical performance, lower cost, and building batteries in conformal shapes. Unfortunately, present manufacturing processes make it difficult to meet these goals. The purpose of this proposed work is to make lower cost, high performance thermal batteries through the use of improved, continuous processing of battery components. Batteries will be made using any of several techniques, including the incorporation of a binder, spray processing, tape-casting, and an innovative lamination process. In doing so, continuous processes will replace the lengthy and costly batch processing presently used to make rigid thermal batteries. All of the processes allow for more optimum sizing of electrodes and other cell components,that will improve performance. Furthermore, batteries will be made that can fit into non-standard spaces, such as curvilinear shapes. Phase I will be devoted to demonstrating high volume, low cost processes, and the demonstration of five cell, 3 Ahr cells, especially their power output throughout an extended discharge. During Phase II, 56 V stacks will be engineered and demonstrated, including battery containers and other associated support components.