Aluminum-celmet.

Sumitomo
Electric Industries announced that it has established a production line
at its facility in Shimaya, Konohana-ku, Osaka to speed up the
development of a new porous aluminum called aluminum-celmet.

Celmet
is a porous metal, which is developed from nickel chrome alloy or
nickel. The manufacturing process of Celmet includes electro conductive
coating, nickel plating and removal of plastic foam using heat
treatment.

The
porous metal has a 3-D mesh-like structure and can be easily processed
into different shapes using stamping and cutting processes. The material
has higher porosity than other metals such as foam metal and nonwoven
metal fabric. All these attributes provide excellent filling, preserving
and current-collecting performance. Hence, Celmet is currently used as a
positive electrode current collector in nickel-hydrogen batteries.

Sumitomo
Electric Industries has successfully developed the porous aluminum by
employing the same processes used to produce nickel Celmet.

The
Aluminum-Celmet is lightweight, resistant to corrosion and has higher
electrical conductivity. These qualities make the porous aluminum ideal
for applications in lithium-ion secondary batteries and other batteries
that operate at high voltages. The porous aluminum can also be utilized
for current collectors in capacitors.

Source: http://global-sei.com/