What are battery tabs?

3 min readNov 2, 2022

The tab is a raw material for lithium-ion polymer battery products. For example, mobile phone batteries, Bluetooth batteries, laptop batteries, etc. used in our lives all need to use tabs.

The battery is divided into positive and negative poles, and the pole ear is the metal conductor that leads the positive and negative poles from the battery core. In layman’s terms, the ears of the positive and negative poles of the battery are the contact points during charging and discharging. This contact point is not the copper sheet we see on the outside of the battery, but a connection inside the battery. The battery tabs are divided into three materials. The positive electrode of the battery is made of aluminum (Al) material, the negative electrode is made of nickel (Ni) material, and the negative electrode is also made of nickel-plated copper (Ni — Cu) material. They are all composited by film and metal tape. made.

The film is the insulating part on the tab. Its function is to prevent the short circuit between the metal strip and the aluminum-plastic film when the battery is packaged, and is heated (about 140°C) to be hot-melt sealed with the aluminum-plastic film to prevent the battery from being short-circuited. Leakage. A tab consists of two sheets of film sandwiched by a metal band. There are three types of film used in the market: black glue, white glue and single layer glue. The commonly used black film has a three-layer structure: melanin, melting point at 66°C; PE, melting point at 105°C; PP, melting point at 137°C.

The finished packaging of the tabs is divided into disc type (the whole metal strip is wound into a disc after passing through the equipment and the film) and plate type (the metal strip is added with the film and then cut into individual pieces, and then placed in rows with two A thin transparent plastic sheet is sandwiched in the middle).

However, Tesla’s 46800 battery is an earless battery, which is said to be a revolutionary invention, with a 54% increase in cruising range and a 56% reduction in cost. So, what is an earless battery?

The electrodeless ear battery is actually a battery without a motor interface and a Tab. It is essentially a lithium-ion battery. Therefore, this is not a new principle battery, and its innovation mainly lies in the arrangement and power extraction of lithium-ion batteries.

Although the shape of the electrodeless battery is similar to that of an ordinary battery, it is also cylindrical, but its internal structure is completely different. It is made by stacking the positive and negative electrodes and the battery chemical materials in the middle into thin films, and then rolling them up.