Several Frequently Asked Questions From Energy Storage Scientists.  Q: What raw material is required to produce SLMP? A: FMC Lithium uses high purity battery grade lithium metal to produce SLMP. Q: Can SLMP be dispersed in a solution? If so, in what solvents? A: Yes. SLMP can be mixed with active battery materials, such as graphite, hard carbon, silicon, and tin to form a slurry. The slurry can be cast on an appropriate current collector to produce an electrode sheet. A suspension of SLMP can be prepared in a solvent for surface application to prefabricated electrode sheets. Generally, non-polar solvents, such as heptane, hexane, cyclohexane, toluene, and xylene can be used. Q: Are the coatings used to stabilize the surface of the lithium particles compatible with the electrochemical system? A: FMC Lithium uses coating reagents that are compatible with the electrochemical system. Thus, coatings do not have a detrimental effect on the electrochemical performance. Q: Do you think SLMP nanoparticles will perform better than micron sized particles? A: FMC Lithium has the ability to produce SLMP in a range of particle sizes. Upon cell activation/electrolyte addition, SLMP will diffuse into the active electrode material. No metallic lithium particles are left after the completion of the formation cycle. In general, smaller particles result in faster kinetics of the reaction. However, smaller particles have a larger surface area. Consequently, more stabilizing reagent will be required to form a continuous protective layer on every particle, thus reducing the metallic lithium content. Most of our customers have found the standard particle size of SLMP suitable for their applications. Q: Is SLMP available as a thin film on a conductive foil? A: FMC Lithium has developed the concept of depositing SLMP on a variety of substrates. The substrates can then be used as lithium metal carrier films or SLMP could be deposited directly onto current collectors used in applications that require thin film foils. Lithium metal carrier films can transfer thin lithium films onto prefabricated electrode surfaces. Q: Since SLMP can react with water, is there a safety issue for batteries that use SLMP? A: SLMP is a powdery form of lithium metal and it does react with water. However, when it is used in the Li-ion battery, SLMP is used to prelithiate anode materials and, upon electrolyte injection, it diffuses into the anode active material and becomes a lithium ion. Therefore, there is no metallic lithium left upon completion of the formation cycle. When SLMP is used for lithium primary battery application, it should be handled with the same care as lithium foil. Q: What are your current and projected SLMP plans? A: The process FMC Lithium is currently using to produce SLMP is readily scalable. Under the current DOE program, FMC Lithium is designing and building large-scale manufacturing capability to make SLMP available to the market. Additionally, FMC Lithium is actively developing new, alternative manufacturing approaches to further reduce the cost of this material. Q: How could I get a small sample of SLMP ? A: Please contact FMC Lithium Customer Service at lithium.customer.service@fmc.com FMC Lithium charges a sample fee to offset our shipping and handling costs. Interested in learning more about SLMP? Watch the Webinar at FMC Lithium SLMP Webinar.
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