Showa Denko to Market Carbon Coated Al Foil for Li Ion Battery

Showa Denko and the subsidiary, Showa Denko Packaging announced on Thursday they will start mass production of carbon coated aluminium foil with lower electrical resistance for lithium ion battery electrode. The new product can reduce contact resistance by around 50% from traditional plane aluminium foil. The new product improves quick charge and discharge performance for collectors of automotive lithium ion battery. They target 5 billion yen of sales for the product in 2015.

Showa Denko has supplied the product to small number of users and improved the quality. With certain level of improvement, the firm decided the mass production.

The firm succeeded to make the new product by coating plain aluminium foil with electrically conductive carbon to reduce contact resistance between cathode material and collector. The rate performance, which represents battery’s capacity to endure quick charge and discharge, is around 30% higher than traditional material. The adhesion to collector is 1.5 times better than traditional material.

Lithium ion battery industry prefers olivinic lithium ferrous phosphate as cathode material for large lithium ion battery due to the better safety and long life while olivinic cathode has high electrical resistance with plain aluminium foil based collector. The new product can clear those disadvantages.