SUPERIORITY AND FAILURE MODE OF AUTOMOTIVE BATTERIES INSULATED WITH POLYETHYLENE SEPARATORS

For separator types used in North America and Western Europe the trend is towards microporous polyethylene (PE) materials. Battery industrie s in these regions have demonstrated the superiority of PE separators with respect to other types in terms of physical, electrical and chemi cal properties. Grace battery separator technical center (BSTC) in Ham burg (Germany) has analysed 53 failed batteries removed from field ser vice and found only 11.3% of failures is related to PE separators. In explicit terms, separator-related failures are due to deep-discharge a nd subsequent charge of the batteries.