New Industry Products

Sanyo Electric to Begin Selling Its UF383450P Prismatic Lithium-Ion Battery

September 28, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

Sanyo Electric Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) will start selling a thin, prismatic, lithium-ion, secondary battery, the UF383450P, in October 2000. The 3.5mm thick battery is, Sanyo claims, the thinnest lithium-ion battery available on the market. The company plans to manufacture one-million units per month, and to target use for mobile phones.

The UF383450P has a capacity of 550mAh. It has an energy density in volume of 315Wh/L and an energy density weight of 151Wh/kg. The company has said that in order to make it thinner, it was necessary to improve the quality of an alloy of aluminum for the outer case and processing technology, to make the use of active materials such as cobalt-lithium and graphite more effective, and to thin and reshape the insulation panels, separators and other components that comprise the electrode. Sanyo also made adjustments in elements contained in the aluminum alloy in an attempt to make it stronger.

In addition, the company worked on enhancing the accuracy of deep drawing in order to decrease defective molding. Consequently, the outer case was thinned. The thickness has been steadily reduced for the last five years, beginning at nearly 0.5mm five years ago and now slimming down to 0.2mm. The UF383450P measures 3.5 x 33.5 x 49.8mm without the wrapping tube. With the tube, it measures 3.8 x 34 x 50mm and weighs 13.5g.