Porous Power Technologies, in which nonwovens major Ahlstrom acquired a 49% stake at the end of 2011, has launched a new range of ceramic-filled battery separators designed to significantly improve the thermal stability and safety of the large-format lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, flat-cell consumer electronics and many high-power applications.

At high temperatures that can cause other separators to fail, PPT’s ceramic-filled polymer separators fuse together, leaving a thin film of ceramic particles between the electrodes and reducing the likelihood of hard shorts that can lead to thermal runaway and catastrophic cell failure.