Copper foam, a new material for negative electrode collector of semi-solid and solid-state batteries

Copper Foam: Core Material for Next Generation Batteries

1. Metal foam: an important new material

Metal foam is a new type of multifunctional materials, the shape of the "foam" or "honeycomb", mainly based on polyurethane (PU) soft foam as a substrate, prepared by pretreatment, chemical deposition, electrodeposition and heat treatment and other processes.

Due to the above characteristics, copper foam can be used in special industrial filtration, catalyst carriers, lightweight materials and industrial thermal conductivity and heat dissipation, etc., in the preparation of battery anode (carrier) materials, and electromagnetic shielding materials, etc. quite potential.

2. Negative electrode collector for semisolid/solid-state lithium battery

As a three-dimensional porous, uniformly interconnected foam metal material, copper foam is expected to become the negative electrode collector of semisolid/solid-state lithium batteries due to its low preparation cost and good conductivity.

In 2023, the total shipment of global automotive lithium power battery is about 887.4GWh, of which, most of them are liquid lithium batteries. With the gradual improvement of safety and performance requirements, semi-solid / solid-state lithium batteries came into being. At present, the curtain of semi-solid lithium battery industrialization has been opened, the industry is moving towards the development direction of "semi-solid first, all-solid follow up", semi-solid / solid lithium batteries are gradually accelerating the comprehensive replacement of liquid lithium batteries.

Advantages of copper foam as anode collector material:

01.High safety

No burr when piercing to avoid internal short circuit.

02. Cost reduction, weight reduction, high energy density

The amount of copper is about 1/7 of traditional copper foil.

03. Excellent supercharging performance

Expected to reach 7-10C.

04. Can realize lithium metal anode

Copper foam collector can inhibit the growth of dendrites, alleviate the volume change of the electrode in the process of charging and discharging, and can be improved through the lithophilicity of the process of composite lithium metal electrode in order to achieve the integration of the anode and the collector, which is conducive to the realization of the application of lithium metal negative electrode to accelerate the industrialization of semisolid / solid-state batteries.

05. Broad market prospects: lightweight features

As a structural material, copper foam has the characteristics of light weight and high specific strength. Compared with the traditional 6-micron electrolytic copper foil and composite copper foil, it can significantly reduce the weight of the battery and improve the energy density of the battery, and is expected to become the core material for the lightweighting of the low-altitude economy, providing important support for the development of low-altitude economy.

06. North Sea Composite: Empowering the key technology of copper foam

As an integrated solution provider of surface engineering technology, the company has rich R&D experience and mature technology reserves in special substrate surface treatment technologies such as metallization, chemical plating, electroplating, etc. At present, the company's products have been widely used in the fields of ABS plating, PP, PET composite copper foil preparation, etc. The core process of copper foam manufacturing is electroplating.

The core process of copper foam manufacturing is plating, and its plating process includes substrate metallization, plating layer thickening, plating layer antioxidant, etc. The quality and cost of plating are closely related to the plating process, plating equipment and special chemicals. The company can provide plating equipment and special chemicals for copper foam plating, and can subsequently improve the process, equipment upgrading and special chemicals.