September 12, 2017 | Product Brief | Orion Engineered Carbons has introduced two new advanced Specialty Carbon Blacks that improve the performance of advanced lead acid batteries (aLAB): XPB 560 Powder and XPB 566 Powder. These new grades, together with Orion’s XPB 593 Powder, constitute the Orion aLAB grade family, which can significantly increase the dynamic charge acceptance (DCA) of the aLAB and control the water loss performance. Orion offers the battery industry high-quality Specialty Carbon Blacks with very low metallic impurities, which also extend battery life.
“Most conductive Carbon Blacks increase hydrogen evolution at the battery’s negative electrode side, resulting in high water loss during battery charging,” said Dr. Jennifer Granados, Orion marketing manager, Coatings & Specialty Applications. “Our advanced Specialty Carbon Blacks are modified to maintain their conductivity and surface area while suppressing the hydrogen evolution reaction on the Carbon Black surface.”
Orion lab-scale testing of the advanced grades showed water loss was greatly reduced even for the high surface area Carbon Blacks.
Orion Specialty Carbon Black has been used as a conductive additive by the global aLAB industry for more than 30 years. Orion has continued its focus on developing new types of conductive Specialty Carbon Blacks to meet the increased requirements for aLAB working at high-rate partial-state-of-charge (HRPSoC) conditions. The new Orion aLAB grade family further fine-tunes the conductivity/water loss balance for both automotive (such as start/stop batteries and micro-hybrid batteries) and stationary energy storage batteries. Orion’s global platform ensures the availability of high-quality Specialty Carbon Black for the global aLAB industry in large volumes.
