Lithium Battery Research Strong in the United States

By Dave Brown —Exclusive to Lithium Investing News

In a recent webcast, Dr. Arun Majumdar discussed the United States Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program to support public and private partnerships that further lithium battery research, electric vehicle and alternative fuel transportation deployment and infrastructure development. Of note for lithium investors was information which advanced current research in lithium battery technology and alternative sources for electric drive vehicles, in addition to: alternative fuel news, clean corridor development, fleet success stories, support and funding development.

As the transportation sector is widely recognized as a major contributor to the United States reliance on foreign oil and air pollution, Dr. Majumdar believes that one way to reduce the impact of these factors is by promoting hybrid and electricity as substitutes to gasoline, where the electricity is stored in large onboard rechargeable batteries.

Some of the information seemed to underscore news from last week, and renewed a commitment to the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). In order to qualify for consideration of the ARPA-E program development projects must involve a technological innovation of important significance that endeavor to double the maximum driving range of current electric cars, and significantly reduce any cost of highly technological dependant production to make the process commercially viable.

Stopping short of relegating petroleum-based fuels in the foreseeable future, Dr. Majumdar clearly espoused his belief that the future of transportation and all energy requirements will be met with a variety of sources. Recognizing that these changes do not happen as rapidly as many advocates would prefer, the future policy and direction for the United States is committed to funding and supporting ongoing development of multiple efforts to optimize domestic scientific research and resources.

International competition

United States research efforts, buoyed by spending from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) investing in clean energy technologies to reduce dependence on foreign oil, are already facing mounting competition from Japan and other global participants.

This week Japanese researchers at Sumitomo Electric Industries (TYO:5802) have developed a new material they estimate can triple the capacity of lithium ion batteries. The advancement was developed as a “small-scale production line” at its Osaka Works research and development center to produce the battery-boosting material, which they call “Aluminum-Celmet“.

The company reports this material possesses a competitive advantage with a porosity of up to 98 percent, considerably higher than other porous metals, such as nonwoven metal fabric and foam metal. This could allow for the battery to contain a significantly larger amount of lithium compound that would contribute ions to the electrical flow. The research is an outgrowth of previous work on similar nickel and nickel-chromium materials that they branded as Celmet.

A manufacturing process that ultimately achieves higher porosity employs the application of conductive coating to plastic foam, coating that structure in nickel, and then removing the foam by heating the material. The product is a three-dimensional mesh of spherical shaped, open pores that, are “easy to process” by conventional techniques such as cutting and stamping.

Sumitomo Electric has already used nickel-based material to create nickel-metal hydride and nickel-cadmium battery cells. The new Aluminum-Celmet material, however, has the advantages of being lighter and having improved electric conductivity and corrosion resistance, properties that make it suitable for secondary lithium ion batteries.

Investors might note the company calculates that lithium ion automotive battery pack built using Aluminum-Celmet could provide between 1.5 and three times as much charging capacity. By that calculation, the same amount of charge could be carried in a smaller, lighter battery. Thus other possible uses for this technology might include compact batteries for electronic devices. A series of other battery manufactures are concurrently working to extend capacity for electronic device batteries with a range for 10 to 32 hours in a suite of laptop releases.

For Sumitomo Electric the potential that this technology could be employed for improved capacitors is also considerable, since aluminum based capacitors have both positive and negative conductors separated by a dielectric, and the chances for weight and bulk savings may be even greater.