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For over 10 years Sandia Labs have been involved in an US DOE-funded program aimed at developing electric vehicle
batteries for transportation applications. Currently this program is called "Advanced Battery Research (ABR)." In this
effort we were preparing 18650 cells with electrodes supplied by or purchased from private companies for thermal abuse
and electrical characterization studies. Lately, we are coating our own electrodes, building cells and evaluating
performance. This paper describes our extensive in-house facilities for slurry making, electrode coating, cell winding etc.
In addition, facilities for electrical testing and thermal abuse will be described. This facility allows us to readjust our
focus quickly to the changing demands of the still evolving ABR program. Additionally, we continue to make cells for
our internal use. We made several 18650 cells both primary (Li-CFx) and secondary (Li-ion) and evaluated performance.
For example Li-CFx cells gave ~2.9Ahr capacity at room temperature. Our high voltage Li-ion cells consisting of carbon
anode and cathode based on LiNi 0.4Mn 0.3Co 0.3O2 in organic electrolytes exhibited reproducible behavior and gave
capacity on the order of 1Ahr. Performance of Li-ion cells at different temperatures and thermal abuse characteristics
will be presented.
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