TRU White Paper

There are sharply increased customer demands for a much better rechargeable battery – one more powerful, long lasting, efficient, compact and safe. The Li-Fiber battery meets all these demands and is particularly ideal for use in laptop computers, power tools and hybrid electric vehicles. The Li-Fiber battery is also low cost and has the potential to replace conventional Li-Ion or Li-Poly batteries not only in the above uses but potentially for all applications.The COMPANY has a strong competitive advantage in a fast expanding target market valued at $6 billion worldwide in 2005. It aims to exploit this position as soon as possible. Management has extensive battery experience. Client needs $1 million urgently to produce samples of the most safe best performing laptop battery. $15 million for flexible plant. The Li-Fiber battery is safe even for electric vehicle batteries and could even replace the lead acid battery as voltages increase. Laptop battery recalls such as the recall by DELL, Apple, IBM, Toshiba and Lenovo of over 9 million notebook computer batteries made by Sony and Sanyo would be a thing of the past and the 2008 spare battery rules for air travel would also be unnecessary. This is if Li-Fiber cells are adopted since they are inherently safe and do not heat up with use**. The Li-Fiber battery outperforms conventional Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells, The lightweight cell beats all comers on energy per gram - a projected energy density of 450 Wh/L or 250 Wh/kg and have many other advantages beyond safety. The cell is highly flexible with no heat management required.

There is currently in no suitable lithium-ion battery commercially used in passenger cars. Yet the data assumes that the electric vehicles will indeed continue to be a reality in the market, but this may not be the case if the lithium-battery is not introduced successfully. There has been strong growth in HEV sales in the last five years and about half-a-million HEVs sold worldwide in 2007. But the demand for the Ni-MH powered HEV so far could be said to have some particularly potent market influences that have spurred early adopter interest, including –

• Unprecedented focus worldwide on environmental issues and global warming supported by high profile champions such as Al Gore
• Unmatched oil price increases - in the five years rising from $40 to $100 per barrel, most escalation in the last year from $60 in February 2007
• a strong world economy, especially in the USA where most of the demand for HEVs is derived

The influence of the above may continue to act positively on HEV adoption in the next few years but without improvements, especially in the battery, the vehicle could falter and possibly disappear. The main near-term technical challenges for lithium-ion batteries in automotive applications are safety, durability, and cost.

To some observers the electric vehicle long term will not have sufficient intrinsic advantages to be a lasting success . Indeed, in the recent past there has been at least one electric vehicle withdrawn (in 2003 GM withdrew the EV1) and one postponement of a Li-ion battery-powered. Toyota delayed the introduction of Li-ion batteries for the Prius until 2010. Although TRU believes they will actually introduce the new Prius until 2011. Such failures in expectations can have significant negative effects on successful introductions in future. Certainly in the TRU analysis it is crucial that the Li-ion battery achieve enhancements that are expected from the viewpoint of the early adopters, or collapse of the electric vehicle market can be foreseen. Another delay by Toyota in our view could have very negative consequences for adoption.

Find out more on TRU's Lithium Team Capability

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Problems with Conventional Lithium Batteries

- Conventional Li-ion cells are a zero tolerance technology -

Li-Fiber batteries will also replace conventional Li-Ion rechargeable and other batteries because all of the weaknesses of these batteries are resolved with the new technology. The current need is filled with Pb-acid batteries for automobile starting-lighting-ignition, Ni-Cd and Ni-MH batteries for aerospace and military, and Ni-MH and lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics applications such as laptop computers. The main problem with the present lithium-ion batteries is their safety and related capacity restraints. Ninety per cent of the material cost for Li-ion cells is associated with five cell components – overcharge / over-discharge protection circuit, cathode (LiCoO2 or LiNiCoO2) and anode (MCMB carbon) materials, electrolyte (LiPF6), and separator. The need for over-charge / over-discharge protection circuits or devices contributes significantly to the cost of lithium-ion batteries. The conventional Li-ion battery operates within voltage limits of 3.0-4.2 V per cell beyond which either performance deteriorates and / or safety incidents such as explosion or fire occurs-

The present conventional lithium-ion battery is an almost zero tolerance technology - hence the need for protection circuits. The higher the cell capacity requirement the more serious the problem. For high capacity multi-cell high voltage batteries, for example, 10 Ah, 200 V for hybrid electric vehicles, inherently safe battery chemistry is essential but cannot be met with conventional Li-Ion cells. Protection circuitry is usually designed into any lithium ion battery pack to prevent the cells in the battery from over charge and over discharge conditions and high currents or short circuits. Some circuitry goes further than the standard parameters and guards against high temperature charge and discharge, as well as high charge rates at low temperatures. The circuit usually consists of a protection IC, several FET devices, and sense resistors. These circuits add cost and space to the battery pack requirements and careful placement is required in physical layouts. The active circuits in lithium ion batteries continually draw power causing the battery to constantly discharge slowly, although usually in the micro amp current range.

This is an increasing issue in laptop batteries as laptops require more energy capacity to operate. The Li-Fiber battery does not overheat even in high energy capacity applications and requires no significant electronic protection circuit or heat management. It is also cheaper to manufacture than conventional Li-ion cells.