The United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) recently granted a $919,000 contract to Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) to assess active coating material in order to verify whether this technology actually improves Li-ion cell-level energy density and lowers costs.

The 18-month-long project, which began last year, will evaluate PSI cells to determine whether the company’s active material coating technology improves cell-level energy density and lowers cell cost.

According to PSI, its novel high active material-coating technology increases the electrical and ionic conductivity at the surface of the Li-ion battery’s anode and cathode active materials. This allows active material content to be increased to 98-99%, compared to current standards of 92-95%, while also eliminating the need for high-surface-area carbons. It also allows reduced binder content, increased electrode density, and a reduction in the amount of electrode processing solvent, drying times and overall production cost.

“Programs like this are critical to advancing the technology needed to meet both near- and long-term goals that will enable broader scale vehicle electrification,” said Steve Zimmer, Executive Director of the United States Council for Automotive Research.

Source: USABC