Method of producing cathode mixture for batteries

Abstract: A method of producing a cathode mixture for batteries is disclosed. It comprises supplying a wet mixture containing a cathode active material, a binding agent and a conductive material onto a disc (12) having a horizontal surface and rotating around its vertical axis, moving the mixture along the upper and side surfaces of the disc to obtain spherical granules. A liquid mixture can also be used. Another type of granulator is also disclosed, which comprises a nearly truncated circular cone-shaped container (62) having a center axis placed vertically and a nozzle portion secured to a rotation shaft aligned with the center axis of said container (51), extended in a direction having a horizontal component and having liquid mixture agent discharge ports (70) and hot air blowing ports (71); the method of producing the cathode mixture consisting in discharging a liquid mixture containing a cathode active material, a binding agent and a conductive material from said liquid mixture agent discharge ports into said container (51), and blowing hot air from said hot air blowing ports (71) so as to roll said discharged mixture along the inclined surface of said container while drying and shaping said mixture into spherical granules.

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method of producing a granular cathode mixture for batteries. Conventional cathode mixtures for batteries have been produced by using a batch-type kneading granulator. The method is mixing an active material, a binding agent and a conductive material in a predetermined mixture ratio, shearing and kneading the mixture by stirring vanes, and then shaping the mixture into granules by drying. The granular cathode mixture thus produced is pressurized and shaped into pellet-shaped cathodes after being subdivided to heaps by using a measure, that is charging the cathode mixture into a measure having a predetermined volume, and then moving a partitioning rod along the upper fringe of the measure so as to level off the upper surface of the charged cathode mixture and to remove excessive amounts of the charged cathode mixture. These days, with the increasing application of batteries to compact appliances such as electronic calculators and watches, demands for smaller or thinner batteries are getting large. To satisfy the demands, an amount of a cathode mixture in such battery must be small. Therefore, it is required to decrease the unevenness in weight of the cathode. Furthermore, the cathode mixtures are required to have high reaction efficiency and a superior discharge characteristic even at a high load. To meet these requirements, there is a need for a granular cathode mixture having granule diameters in the range of 40 to 500 µm and also having a large specific surface area attained by increasing the porosity thereof. However, the granules of the cathode mixture made by the above-mentioned method using the batch-type kneading granulator were large in diameter and also in unevenness in the diameter thereof. Therefore, such cathode mixture had large unevenness in weight of the heap measured by leveling off. Furthermore, the granules of the cathode mixture obtained by being sheared and kneaded with the stirring vanes had a low porosity. BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a cathode mixture having small granule diameters, having small unevenness in diameter and facilitating accurate measurement of weight accurately by leveling off with small unevenness. The present invention further provides a cathode mixture having a high porosity and being superior in a discharge characteristic even at a high load. The method of producing a cathode mixture for batteries in the present invention comprises the steps of: supplying a wet mixture containing a cathode active material, a binding agent and a conductive material to a screw-inline type granulator comprising a cylinder, an extruding screw disposed in said cylinder and a hemispherical die having through holes at the tip surface of said cylinder so as to produce granules by extruding said mixture from said through holes by the rotation of said extruding screw; preparing a granule shaping apparatus comprising a sealed cylindrical container, a rotary disc placed horizontally and having a frame-like side wall projecting upward in said cylindrical container and a means for blowing air from the clearance between the container and said rotary disc; and applying said granules onto the rotating rotary disc, to shape the granules into spheres. It is preferable that the through holes of the hemispherical die have a diameter of 0.3 mm or less. In the methods of producing a cathode mixture in the present invention, metal oxide such as manganese dioxide, copper oxide or silver chromate, metal sulfide, metal halide or carbon halide such as carbon fluoride can be used as the main active material. Furthermore, the present invention can also be applied adequately to cathode mixtures for organic electrolyte batteries, alkaline electrolyte batteries and Leclanche batteries. While the novel features of the invention are set forth particularly in the appended claims, the invention, both as to organization and content, will be better understood and appreciated, along with other objects and features thereof, from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a vertical sectional view showing the granulating process of a granulator used in an example of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view showing the granule shaping process of a granule shaping apparatus in the same example. FIG. 3A is a magnified vertical sectional view showing the granule shaping process of the same granule shaping apparatus. FIG. 3B is a magnified perspective view showing the granule shaping process of the same granule shaping apparatus. FIG. 4 is a vertical sectional view showing a coin-shaped lithium battery used to evaluate a cathode mixture obtained in the example of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a characteristic diagram showing a high-load continuous discharge characteristic of the same battery. FIG. 6 is a characteristic diagram shown a closed-circuit voltage characteristic of the same battery. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The examples of the present invention are explained below with reference to the drawings. EXAMPLE 1 First, 5 kg of manganese dioxide as a cathode active material, 300 g of an expanded graphite as a conductive material, 50 g of tetrafluoroethylenehexafluoropropylene copolymer as a binding agent and 1 kg of water were mixed for two minutes so as to obtain a mixture. Herein, the expanded graphite used in the mixture was obtained by intercalating sulfuric acid in the spaces among layers of a scaly graphite, heating the graphite so as to cause expansion among the layers and then removing compounds generated among the layers by washing, thereby increasing the specific surface area of the graphite. This mixture was processed by a screw-inline type granulator shown in FIG. 1 to obtain cylindrical granules as described below. A mixture 4 obtained above was supplied to the granulator from a hopper 5. An extruding screw 2 disposed in a cylinder 6 rotates at a desired speed in the direction indicated in the figure by a motor (not shown) connected thereto. By the rotation of the extruding screw 2, the mixture 4 is extruded in the direction indicated in the figure while being kneaded. A hemispheric die 1 having a plurality of circular through holes 7 is secured at the tip of the cylinder 6. The mixture 4 having been extruded to the hemispheric die 1 by the extruding screw 2 is further extruded from the through holes 7 to the outside of the granulator. According to this method, the mixture 4 is sheared when the mixture 4 passes extruding vanes 3 secured at the tip of the extruding screw 2, and is torn by its own weight after being discharged from the hemispheric die 1, thereby obtaining cylindrical granules 8 having a length within a predetermined range. The hemispheric die 1 was implemented by a stainless steel screen and the through holes 7 had a diameter of 0.3 mm. The extruding screw 2 was rotated at 30 rpm. The cylindrical granules 8 thus obtained were supplied into a granule shaping apparatus shown in FIG. 2, while the granules remained wet. The cylindrical granules 8 which have been supplied from a hopper 10 is conducted onto a disc 12 which is disposed in a cylindrical container 11 with the surface of the disc 12 placed horizontally. A continuous upright side wall is formed at the outer peripheral portion of the upper surface of the disc 12. The disc 12 is rotated by a motor (not shown) connected to a rotation shaft 13. While air was blown into an air chamber 15 from an air blowing hole 14, the cylindrical granules 8 were supplied on the disc 12 rotating at 300 rpm. Then the supplied cylindrical granules 8 are rotated on the disc 12 and shaped into spheres. As shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, the cylindrical granules 8 supplied from the hopper 10 into the granule shaping apparatus fall to the rotating disc 12. After the fall, the cylindrical granules 8 are rotated while taking doughnut-like paths, as if ropes are twisted, along the side wall of the cylindrical container 11. This rotation is caused by the centrifugal force due to the rotation of the disc 12 and by the air blown from the clearance between the outer peripheral portion of the disc 12 and the cylindrical container 11. By this operation, the cylindrical granules are shaped into spheres. Herein, the air blown from the clearance between the disc 12 and the cylindrical container 11 is useful for preventing the cylindrical granules 8 from dropping and attaching to the rotation shaft 13. Shaped granules 17 thus obtained are discharged from a discharge dumper 16. The shaped granules 17 thus obtained were dried by hot air at 120 °C, thereby obtaining a cathode mixture. COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 1 As a comparative example, a mixture having the same mixture ratio as that of the above-mentioned Example 1 was kneaded for 15 minutes by a kneading apparatus provided with stirring vanes, and dried at 150 °C for 16 hours, thereby obtaining a cathode mixture. These cathode mixtures of Example 1 and Comparative Example 1 were each measured 1,000 times by leveling off so as to obtain an amount of 450 mg, and unevenness in weight was examined. TABLE 1 shows the results of the examination. cathode mixture average [mg] maximum [mg] minimum [mg] standard deviation (σ) [mg] Example 1 430.0 434.0 427.5 1.1 Comparative Example 1 430.5 440.5 420.2 3.5 As clearly shown in TABLE 1, the unevenness in weight in the case of the cathode mixture of Example 1 is small, namely about 1/3 to the unevenness in the case of the cathode mixture of Comparative Example 1. It is apparent that the shaped granules of Example 1 are more uniform than those of Comparative Example 1. The cathode mixtures measured as described above were pressurized at 2,000 to 4,000 kgf/cm 2 and dried by hot air at 250 °C, thereby obtaining cathode pellets. These cathode pellets were then used to produce coin-type lithium batteries measuring 20 mm in diameter and 16 mm in height as shown in FIG. 4. In a stainless steel battery case 20 which is also used as an cathode terminal, a cathode pellet 25 is disposed and is closely contacted with the battery case 20. A separator 24 made of nonwoven fabric of polypropylene impregnated with a nonaqueous electrolyte and an anode active material 22 of lithium are stacked in this order on the cathode pellet 25. At the opening of the battery case 20, a stainless steel sealing plate 21 also used as an anode terminal is disposed with a polypropylene gasket 23 intervened between the peripheral portion of the sealing plate 21 and the battery case 20. The sealing plate 21 compressed and adhered to the anode active material 22. The battery is hermetically sealed by applying sealing agent 26 to the surface of the gasket 23, and crimping the opening tip of the battery case 20 inward. The coin-type batteries using the cathode mixtures of Example 1 and Comparative Example 1 were subjected to a high-load continuous discharge characteristic test at an ambient temperature of 20 °C and at a load of 1 kΩ. FIG. 5 shows the results of the test. Furthermore, the batteries were also subjected to a high-load continuous discharge characteristic test wherein the batteries were connected to a load of 400 Ω at an ambient temperature of 20 °C and discharged for 15 seconds. FIG. 6 shows the results of the test. As shown in FIG. 5, it is confirmed that the battery using the cathode mixture of Example 1 is higher in the battery voltage and the discharge capacity than that of the conventional battery using the cathode mixture of Comparative Example 1. As shown in FIG. 6, the voltage drop in the close-circuit voltage characteristic of the battery using the cathode mixture of Example 1 is lower than that of the battery using the cathode mixture of Comparative Example 1. It is assumed that this is caused by the following reason. Since the battery using the cathode mixture of Example 1 has a larger specific surface area in the cathode mixture than the battery using the cathode mixture of Comparative Example 1, the reaction of the active material in the cathode takes place more easily in the battery using the cathode mixture of Example 1 than in the battery using the cathode mixture of Comparative Example 1. The diameter of the through holes of the die is required to be 0.3 mm or less in order to obtain granules having diameters in the range of 40 to 500 µm, suited for cathode mixtures for batteries, in a high yield. However, since the die surface of a conventional extruding granulator is flat, the pressure applied to the die becomes nonuniform when the cathode mixture is extruded by a screw. Therefore, in case the diameter of the through holes is small, the die is apt to be heated and broken. For this reason, it is impossible to make the diameter of the through holes smaller than 0.5 mm. As a result, in the case that the conventional apparatus was used, the yield of the granules of the cathode mixture having a diameter in the above-mentioned range was low. Since the die of the present invention is hemispheric, it becomes possible to easily use the die provided with through holes having diameters in the range of 0.3 mm or less. Consequently, granules having diameters in the range of 40 to 500 pm can be produced in a high yield. Furthermore, since the granules of the cathode mixture produced by the production method of the present example are softer and more porous than those produced by a conventional kneading granulator, the granules are superior in the absorption of an electrolyte. Accordingly, this makes it possible to obtain batteries superior in discharge performance even at a high load. In the case of Example 1, a cathode mixture is made once in a cylindrical granular shape, and then the granules are shaped into spheres.

Claims: A method of producing a cathode mixture for batteries comprising the steps of: supplying a wet mixture (4) containing a cathode active material, a binding agent and a conductive material into a screw inline granulator comprising a cylinder (6), an extruding screw (2) disposed in said cylinder and a hemispherical die (1) having through holes (7) at the tip surface of said cylinder so as to produce granules (8) by extruding said mixture from said through holes by the rotation of said extruding screw; preparing a granule shaping apparatus comprising a sealed cylindrical container (11), a rotary disc (12) placed horizontally and having a frame-line side wall projecting upward in said cylindrical container and a means (14) for blowing air from the clearance between said container and said rotary disc, and applying said granules (8) onto said rotary disc (12), to shape said granules into spheres. A method of producing a cathode mixture for batteries in accordance with claim 1, wherein the diameter of said through hole (7) is 0.3 mm or less.

Inventors: DAIO FUMIO, HASHIMOTO TATSUYA, IGUCHI AKIRA, OHSHIMA KENICHI, DAIO, FUMIO, HASHIMOTO, TATSUYA, IGUCHI, AKIRA, OHSHIMA, KENICHI
Applicants: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC IND CO LTD, MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
Application year: 1996
Main classification: H01M4
IPC codes: H01M4