The funding was included in the Fiscal Year 2006 Energy & Water Development bill, which was passed by the US Congress today and is expected to be signed by President Bush within the next week. The 2006 funding will bring DOE’s total investment in the development of the bipolar wafer-cell NiMH battery to approximately $6.5 million.

Instead of using the conventional cylindrical coiled electrode or flat plate prismatic designs, the EEI design uses individual sealed flat rectangular wafer cells that are stacked on top of each other to create a series-connected battery.

Each wafer cell contains one positive electrode, a separator material, one negative electrode, and outer faces that serve as positive and negative contacts of the cell and contain the cell’s potassium hydroxide electrolyte.

To construct a multi-cell battery assembly, identical cells are stacked with end contacts and end plates.

This bi-polar design is more compact, exhibits higher power capability, and presumably will be lower in cost that the conventional cylindrical and prismatic designs.

EEI also announced a third-quarter loss of $710,280 on sales of $941,972 for the quarter, compared to a loss of $303,267 on sales of $1.95 million a year ago.

Resources:

• Bipolar Nickel Metal Hydride Battery