Press Release

Development of the X-Ray Particle Inspection System for the Lithium Ion Batteries

Measurement and analysis instrument manufacturer SII NanoTechnology Inc. (SIINT) a 100% subsidiary of Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII), successfully developed the X-ray Inspection system which enables the detection of the metal particles about 20um in diameter contained in the fuel cell electrode and the lithium ion rechargeable battery electrode in few minutes and the elemental analysis automatically.

Contamination of the metal particles in the fuel cell and the lithium ion rechargeable batteries causes the decrease of the production yield and the battery lifetime. Especially the contamination in the lithium ion rechargeable batteries causes the heat and the fire in the worst case. Contamination of the metal particles has to be avoided due to the large volume of the batteries used in the electric vehicle, the hybrid car, and the residence. Therefore the most of the battery manufacturers perform the complex failure analysis.

Contamination is caused by the materials such as the active materials and the separators, and through the manufacturing process of coating. In the conventional method the failure analysis is performed to assume how the disassembled failure battery is contaminated by specifying the target elements using the Scanning Electron Microscope or the fluorescent X-ray analyzer after identifying the location of the metal particles in the disassembled failure battery using the X-ray CT system or the optical microscopes. However, its limited performance caused the difficulty in detecting the metal particles less than or equal to 20um in diameter and the long detection time. Furthermore, there was a problem that the identified location was lost due to the elemental analysis of the detected particles was performed by other systems.
SII NanoTechnology Inc. developed the world first X-ray particle inspection system which enables the inspection and the analysis of the metal particles about 20um in diameter using the technologies of metal particle detection by X-Ray Imaging and the fluorescent X-ray analysis.

This system automatically delivers the X-Ray Imaging, the detection of the metal particles, and the elemental analysis only by setting sample such as the electrode, the separators, and the active material in the pan, selecting the detection procedure, and starting measurement. As a result of the analysis the number of metal
particles, each composition, size, and the images by optical microscope are provided. Due to the results can be obtained automatically without sample preparation, the failure analysis and the sampling inspection can be performed easily.