PRESSURE TOLERANT LITHIUM BATTERIES

THE U.S. NAVY HAS A NEED FOR HIGH PRESSURE TOLERANT BATTERIES WITH ENERGY DENSITIES OF 100 WH/LB AND OPERATIONAL AT OCEAN DEPTHS OF 20,000 FT. CURRENT DEEP OCEAN BATTERY TECHNOLOGY INVOLVES THE USE OF INEFFICIENT HULLS OR CONTAINERS FOR THE PROTECTION OF POWER SOURCES FROM THE HIGH PRESSURE ENVIRONMENTS. WGL PROPOSES TO INVESTIGATE THE FEASIBILITY OF DEVELOPING PRESSURE COMPENSATED CELL CONTAINMENT AND UTILIZING THIS TECHNOLOGY IN CONJUNCTION WITH LITHIUM (LI) PRIMARY CELL SYSTEMS TO MAXIMIZE ENERGY DENSITY. TWO LITHIUM CELL SYSTEMS WILL BE INVESTIGATED: (I) LI/CSC (CHLORINATED SULFURYL CHLORIDE) AND (II) LI/CFX (CARBON MONOFLUORIDE). THE METHOD OF PRESSURE COMPENSATION TO BE INVESTIGATED WILL BE INCORPORATION OF BELLOWS INTO THE CELL CONTAINER FOR EQUALIZATION OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL PRESSURE. THE EXPERIMENTS WILL FOCUS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROTOTYPE CELLS OF THE TWO LITHIUM CHEMISTRIES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE TESTING AT BOTH ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE AND 10,000 PSI. AS A RESULT OF THIS EFFORT, A RECOMMENDATION WILL BE MADE AS TO THE FEASIBILITY OF SUCCESSFUL PHASE II DEVELOPMENT, AND THE APPROACH TO BE TAKEN.