To ultimately provide a complete thermal battery system that meets the objectives of the defined program, i.e. electrolyte melting temperature between 100 and 230C, single cell voltage greater than 2 V, sustained background current density greater than 0.5 A/cm2 and pulse current density capability greater than 6 A/cm2, several technical details need to be considered. Given the scope of the program the first is the identification of a suitable electrolyte system. The second is the identification of a higher voltage electrochemical couple. Although new, lower temperature molten salt electrolyte systems, once identified, will be considered for this investigation, the most cost-effective and technically viable approach is to combine the expertise of thermal battery design, development and production capabilities that exists at ENSER with a lower temperature electrolyte system that has already shown promise. Work performed by Dr. Melvin Miles has demonstrated that a molten nitrate electrolyte may perform well as a thermal battery electrolyte system therefore nitrate electrolytes will be tested for optimization and use. In order to meet the program objectives for the high-voltage thermal battery it will be necessary to utilize an advanced cathodes, advanced anodes, or both that are under development at ENSER.
Benefit: The development of new technologies directed towards the improvement of thermal battery capabilities will allow ENSER to fully support the development of new defense programs by ensuring a reliable supply of advanced-capability thermal battery product lines that are now and will continue to be - critical to our national defense. Thus the development of higher performance batteries would be beneficial to the Department of Defense developmental agencies and all Prime contractors performing on weapons development programs. It is important to note that because ENSER is well established as a supplier of thermal batteries (ENSER presently supplies CAS, GS, and GU batteries for the AIM-9X program) and already possesses the requisite software and test capabilities to perform on the proposed program, a third-party commercialization partner is not required. ENSER is fully equipped and staffed to incorporate the proposed technical enhancements directly into commercial products.
Keywords: Higher Voltage, Higher Voltage, Low-temperature electrolyte, thermal batteries
