Advanced Membranes Systems announced plans to open a battery separator manufacturing plant at the 2010 Power Sources Conference. The new manufacturing plant will offer enabling technology for a Lithium Ion Battery or LIB market which is expected to expand fast.
According to company sources, this initiative will cater to the growing needs of the American market with respect to lithium batteries as they are required in automobiles, wireless devices and several other applications.
AMS has entered into a joint venture with Biax Laboratories for setting up the large manufacturing plant in Rutherfordton in North Carolina. The venture named UltraLith LLC is expected to start shipping products to battery manufacturers in August itself. The plant will offer battery separator technology that meets all lithium battery capabilities required in Electric Drive Vehicle or EDV applications.
Company sources explained that the separator forms a main component for lithium ion batteries contributing to the performance, safety and cost. Also it was revealed that the separator market for applications such as laptops and wireless devices is close to $1 billion, and growing at a rate of about 7% per year. As in the case of EDVs, battery performance and safety levels are most imperative the separators role is critical in meeting those requirements.
It is expected that the separator market for EDVs will growing to hundreds of millions of dollars within five years. Government entities including the Department of Energy and the U.S. military have expressed a desire to use U.S. energy manufacturers. However at present LIB separators are sourced chiefly from Asia, said company sources.
In a release, Abbas Samii, president and chief scientist for AMS said, "While U.S. separator manufacturers are trying to extend the capabilities of their existing separator products, more recent patents, particularly from Asia, have given those companies a technology lead in lithium batteries, and a head start in EDVs."
"We believe our new UltraLith patents give us the technology advantage and that our new production facility will allow us to be the type of resource that U.S. government sponsors are seeking," Samii added.
The new UltraLith-HP is a non-shutdown polyolefin separator engineered for high power, high density lithium batteries. UltraLith-HP offers optimized performance and safety and also is capable of working in any lithium chemistry for Electric Drive Vehicles. It can run on the same equipment that battery manufacturers use now. Also the UltraLith-SD from AMS is a shutdown separator which is designed such that it adapts with all consumer applications.
Shamila Janakiraman is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Shamila's articles, please visit her columnist page.
