A Novel Substrate for Nickel‐Cadmium Batteries

Abstract

Although the nickel‐cadmium battery is accepted as the rechargeable system of choice for applications where size and weight are crucial, its electrode substrate accounts for about 40% of the battery weight. A new fibrous nickel substrate called Fibrex that offers a potential 50% reduction in the weight of the electrode substrate and a corresponding 20% gain in specific energy, has become available. Thus, it is desirable to determine whether this substrate is a good material for the Ni/Cd battery. When compared to sintered electrodes, the Fibrex nickel hydroxide electrodes have similar specific energy and about 20–30% less in energy per unit volume. The Fibrex cadmium electrodes, however, have very good capacity, 0.038 Ah/cm2. If such capacity remains after long‐term testing, a 50% weight reduction of the substrate would be realized. We were also able to reduce the impregnation processing time from a typical 90–120 min for sintered electrodes to only 12 min for Fibrex electrodes.