Advancing Lithium Ion Technology for Aerospace Applications 1999-01-2637

Lithion, a division of Yardney Technical Products, under a PRDA contract, has developed a true prismatic Lithium Ion battery to meet the stated performance criteria for the MARS 2001 Lander. The Lander battery requires compatibility with environments from -30°C to 50°C, a capacity at -20°C of 25 Ah at a C/2 rate, and a cycle life of greater than 200 cycles. To meet these requirements Lithion performed extensive research to optimize performance at low temperature. Specifically, the relationship between cell capacity at various temperatures and anode material particle size was characterized. In addition, the relationship between weight loading and cell capacity at various temperatures was characterized. Furthermore, as the low temperature performance of a battery is often greater than that of an individual cell experiments were run to characterize heat generation and heat flow in the Lithium Ion system. The results of this multi-pronged approach to optimize the Lithium Ion performance are reviewed in this paper.