Lithium Battery Manufacturing – Humidity Control
Lithium battery manufacturing requires very tight production controls. Lithium batteries are high energy, longer life batteries used in a wide range of applications, including portable electronics, torches and implanted medical devices. The demand for this type of battery has been growing significantly.
In the production of Lithium batteries, precise humidity control is required. To create the essential dry air during the manufacturing process, dew points as low as -600C dp needs to be achieved. This very low dew point is the equivalent of less than 0.5% relative humidity (RH) at 250C and is required to ensure that the Lithium remains stable.
Some of the problems that we have come across in this industry include:
- The degradation of the Lithium material
- Minimizing infiltration
- Coping with moisture from people and the process
- Improving existing installations.
It is necessary to maintain such a low humidity environment in the production of lithium batteries because Lithium reacts negatively with water (vapour) to produce lithium hydroxide, hydrogen, and heat. This exposure to moisture directly impacts the quality, performance, and shelf life of the batteries.
A specialist dry room is required for such a demanding application. The production requires very specialist construction techniques and careful design of infiltration and personnel loadings to ensure that the condition is maintained.
In this case, the use of DEHUM equipment, including DEHUM desiccant dehumidifiers, is essential and works closely with associated cooling and heating systems, with close tolerance control assured by utilization of high volume flow rates, usually laminar flow across the room.
The DEHUM equipment is also re-designed to ensure maximum efficiency and minimize running costs. All plants utilized for these challenging conditions are bespoke for the particular application and would be designed in conjunction with specialist contractors and consultants.
With our knowledge and experience in this field, we have achieved and maintained dewpoints lower than -700C dewpoint beyond the capability of other suppliers and exceeded our clients’ expectations.
