Development of new additive for positive active material and application to enhanced flooded batteries for micro-HEVs

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption from the transport sector is a major problem for governments worldwide. For example, European Commission have demanded automakers to reduce 55 % CO2 emissions comparison with 2021 by 2030, which is equivalent to less than 50 g CO2 emissions per 1km driven. Furthermore, they set the aim at reducing 100 % CO2 emissions by 2035. It means a complete replacement from internal combustion engine vehicles including strong HEVs to zero-emission vehicles such as EVs. On the other hand, micro HEVs with stop start and regen brake system are increasing in the developing countries, because micro HEVs are reasonable cost than HEV and EV.

Usually micro-HEVs are adopting EFB. However, recently there is an increasing demand for EFB with high capacity and further longer life by car manufacturers. Generally, there is a trade-off between the capacity and the cycle life, so increasing the cycle life tends to reduce the capacity. The Furukawa Battery has developed new EFB which is improved both capacity and cycle life by improving the positive active material by using a new additive. The developed EFB has adopted by car manufacturers. In this paper, results of the improvement study of the positive active material and the test results of the EFB using new additive are presented.