News Room 2012 (The former Furukawa-Sky)

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Development of "FUSPOROUS" current collector for lithium-ion battery

February 22, 2012

Furukawa-Sky has recently developed a new kind of current collector for lithium-ion battery , we are calling "FUSPOROUS."

Lithium-ion batteries are used in products such as mobile phones and PCs, as well as recently in EVs , HVs, industrial and home-use power storage modules, and a variety of other applications. Demand for these batteries is expected to increase.

Furukawa-Sky had already developed aluminum foil for current collectors and has been expanding sales of that product for some time, but demand for better aluminum foil performance has been increasing due to progress in improving the storage capacity of lithium-ion secondary batteries, which calls for even higher-quality aluminum foil.

Nonetheless, in electrodes employing standard aluminum foil it is necessary to limit the thickness of the composite layers (active materials + carbon conductive additives^*2 + binder^*3) so as to enable the effective use of active materials^*1. This in turn limits increases in the capacity of individual battery cells, so in order to achieve high-capacity batteries the electrodes must be stacked. We looked into creating a structure that would increase the durability of the composite layers and improve the capacity of the battery cells, and arrived at the idea of arranging the electrodes in a three-dimensional structure.

FUSPOROUS, the [new] lithium-ion battery current collector developed by Furukawa-Sky, is formed as a three-dimensional porous structure, and in addition to being vastly superior to standard aluminum foil current collector in terms of composite layer durability it has the following special characteristics:

1. High porosity (maximum 95%) structure.
2. Composed of highly-conductive high-purity aluminum, ensuring strength.
3. High specific surface area achieved by using a porous medium.

Therefore, FUSPOROUS achieves greater capacity per unit of specific surface area than standard aluminum foil current collector, making it suitable for high-capacity lithium-ion secondary batteries.

FUSPOROUS for lithium-ion battery current collector is slated for exhibition at the BATTERY JAPAN 2012 - 3rd Int'l Rechargeable Battery Expo to be held at Tokyo Big Sight from February 29 (W) through March 2 (F).

*1

Active materials: Materials that produce current in a battery

*2

Carbon conductive additives: Material added to improve the current flow through the battery’s composite layers

*3

Binder: Material for binding the solid particles