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In the early days, developers felt that lithium batteries stored too much energy to be made safely in large sizes. and that they could never be designed to provide high power. It was only in the last few years that the technically challenge of building large, high energy and powerfull Lithium Ion batteries has been met. To understand the relationship of energy and power, consider the analogy of an automobile. The gas tank is analogous to the energy, the larger it is, the farther the car can drive. The motor is analogous to the power, the larger it is, the faster the car can accelerate and the faster it can drive. To be able to compare different battery systems irrespective of their sizes, energy and power are normalized per unit weight and volume (specific energy/power and energy/power density). The table below shows general comparisons between advanced lithium ion batteries and two other common rechargeable chemistries. The first is the well known lead-acid battery - the starter battery in your car. Good for a high power pulse to start your car, but very heavy, loses it charge on standing (self discharge) and doesn't work well in the cold. The second is the nickel metal hydride battery, similar in chemistry to the NiCad, and the precursor of the lithium ion batteries in cell phones and laptops. It is still commonly used in rechargeable AA cells in portable electronics. It is also the battery employed in the first generation of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV).
LTC's unique technology allows for the production of very large cells with a high capacity and high power capability. These cells form the building block for batteries assembled by electrically connecting them in series and in parallel with an energy content from 10 times the capacity of a standard laptop computer battery to 100,000 times greater. LTC manufactures the GAIA® product line of large, high power hermetically sealed cells that are either designed to maximize energy content (HE product line) or power capability (HP or UHP product lines). LTC produces high power cells designed for HEVs and military applications that can discharge hundreds of amps in times as short as a few minutes, and high capacity cells for applications such as back-up power and remote standby installations. LTC manufactures a variety of standard cells in both cylindrical and flat formats that are assembled into custom large batteries complete with electronics (battery management systems) that ensures systems safety and performance and enables the battery to communicate with other components of the system to optimize total performance The graph below shows the classic representation of power vs energy for the different chemistries. You can easily see that for any given power requirement, lithium ion batteries deliver the greatest amount of energy.  LTC's wholly owed affiliate GAIA Akkumulatorenwerke in Nordhausen, Germany employs a unique patented extrusion process for producing electrodes for lithium ion cells. This process is environmentally friendly (no solvent) and eliminates the need for expensive explosion proof coating and solvent recovery equipment. Using high speed winding and a unique assembly technology, large cylindrical cells are manufactured. In our Plymouth Meeting facility, we have the capability to build large footprint flat cells and stack them to form large batteries. Our proprietary technology includes critical composition, processing, and packaging aspects of the battery. Our coating, lamination and extrusion know-how enables us to achieve uniformity and consistency through a range of application techniques. Batteries for the consumer, transportation, and industrial markets require different electro-chemical systems that we believe can be easily accommodated by our extrusion process.  Batteries are designed based upon specification which determine the specific cell, the number of cells and the configuration. A critical part of every lithium ion battery is the battery management system (BMS). The BMS monitors the cells, keeps them in balance for best performance, reports the state of charge and state of health and prevents damage to the battery due to over voltage, under voltage, over temperature and short circuit. The block diagram of such a system is shown below.  LTC has its own proprietary BMSs and also uses propriatary commercial units developed for LTC such as shown below:  |
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