Overview of ENEA's projects on lithium batteries

The increasing need of high performance batteries in various small-scale an d large-scale applications (portable electronics, notebooks, palmtops, cell ular phones, electric vehicles, UPS, load levelling) in Italy is motivating the R&D efforts of various public and private organizations. Research of L ithium batteries in Italy goes back to the beginning of the technological d evelopment of primary and secondary Lithium systems with national know-how spread in various academic and public institutions with a few private stake holders. In the field of Lithium polymer batteries, ENEA has been dedicatin g significant efforts in almost two decades to promote and carry out basic R&D and pre-industrial development projects. In recent years, three major n ational projects have been performed and coordinated by ENEA in cooperation with some universities, governmental research organizations and industry. In these projects novel polymer electrolytes with ceramic additives, low co st manganese oxide-based composite cathodes, environmentally friendly proce ss for polymer electrolyte, fabrication processes of components and cells h ave been investigated and developed in order to fulfill long-term needs of cost-effective and highly performant lithium polymer batteries. (C) 2001 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.