Thick-film nickel–metal-hydride battery based on porous ceramic substrates

Nickel–metal-hydride (Ni–MH) batteries are prepared with thick-film and thin-film technologies based on porous ceramic substrates. The porosity and the mean pore diameter of BP ceramic substrates prepared from the argils increases from 19.81% and 0.0432 μm to 29.81% and 0.224 μm, respectively, upon increasing the ethyl cellulose content in the BP argil from 0 to 0.79%. The pore diameter of Al2O3 substrates prepared from Al2O3 powder is mainly distributed in the range 0.01–0.5 μm. The distribution of the pore diameters of BP ceramic substrates lies in two ranges, namely: 0.04–2 μm and 10–300 μm. Using BP ceramic plates and Al2O3 plates as substrates to fabricate thick-film Ni–MH batteries, the optimal electroactive material utilization in the batteries is 77.0 and 71.1%, respectively. On increasing the screen-printing number for preparing the cathode (Ni(OH)2) from 1 to 3, the discharge capacity of the thick-film battery increases from 0.2917 to 0.7875 mAh, and the utilization in the battery decreases from 71.0 to 53.0%.