Capacitor industries

In the second part of the 20th century, the tantalum capacitor industry became a major consumer of tantalum powder. Electrochemically produced tantalum powder, which is characterized by an inconsistent dendrite structure, does not meet the requirements of the tantalum capacitor industry and thus has never been used for this purpose. This is the reason that current production of tantalum powder is performed by sodium reduction of potassium fluorotantalate from molten systems that also contain alkali metal halides. The development of electronics that require smaller sizes and higher capacitances drove the tantalum powder industry to the production of purer and finer powder providing a higher specific charge — CV per gram. This trend initiated the vigorous and rapid development of a sodium reduction process. 

Modem requirements of the capacitor industry initiate further development of tantalum powder production processes. The tendency is to produce powder of higher purity with a higher specific charge and at lower cost. Further development of the processes can be successfully achieved based on current achievements in the chemistry of tantalum and niobium fluoride compounds. 

The ceramic dielectric. The ceramic capacitor industry uses more than 10,000 tons of BaTiOs-based dielectrics (about 90% of the total produced). 

There are a few examples of CMPs that possess inherent conducting properties. Semi-conductivity can also be introduced in the CMP through doping. Such materials can be very useful in battery applications, the capacitor industries and as sensors such as PAE-derived CMPs (Figure 10.9). The conjugation in these CMP networks makes them suitable for semi-conduction purposes. 

With the advent of advanced electronic devices such as handy phone and personal computer, the demand for surface mountable chip components continues to increase. Under this circumstance, the principal developments in ceramic capacitor industry are miniaturization, improvement of volumetric efficiency, cost reduction, improvement in reliability and the design of new products with high performance. 

The Pechini method refers to an original process developed by Pechini (95) for the preparation of titanates and niobates for the capacitor industry. The method has since been applied to many complex oxide compositions (96,97). Metal ions from starting materials such as carbonates, nitrates, and alkoxides are complexed in an aqueous solution with a-carboxylic acids such as citric acid. When heated with a polyhydroxy alcohol, such as ethylene glycol, polyesterification occurs, and on removal of the excess liquid, a transparent resin is formed. The resin is then heated to decompose the organic constituents, ground, and calcined to produce the powder. The typical steps in the method are illustrated in Figure 2.34 for the preparation of SrTiOs powders (98). 

Bayer is linked to the electronics industry via its HC Starck subsidiary which is a leading supplier of tantalum powder to the electrolytic capacitor industry. It also supplies the Baytron P transparent conductive polymer which can be used to manufacture organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). 

Approximately 40% of the U.S. electronic ceramics industry is represented by ferroelectrics. Table 3 shows U.S. consumption of ceramic capacitors and piezoelectric materials (109). 

Electronic Applications. The PGMs have a number of important and diverse appHcations in the electronics industry (30). The most widely used are palladium and mthenium. Palladium or palladium—silver thick-film pastes are used in multilayer ceramic capacitors and conductor inks for hybrid integrated circuits (qv). In multilayer ceramic capacitors, the termination electrodes are silver or a silver-rich Pd—Ag alloy. The internal electrodes use a palladium-rich Pd—Ag alloy. Palladium salts are increasingly used to plate edge connectors and lead frames of semiconductors (qv), as a cost-effective alternative to gold. In 1994, 45% of total mthenium demand was for use in mthenium oxide resistor pastes (see Electrical connectors). 

Silver Thick Films. About half of the silver consumed in the United States for its electrical properties is used by the electronics industry. Of this amount some 40% is used for the preparation of thick-film pastes in circuit paths and capacitors. These are silk-screened onto ceramic or plastic circuit boards for multilayer circuit sandwich components. 

Because of the ease with which they can be soldered, electroplated tin—lead coatings of near eutectic composition (62 wt % tin) are extensively used in the electronics industry for coating printed circuit boards and electrical coimectors, lead wires, capacitor and condenser cases, and chassis. 

Coin and Button Cell Commercial Systems. Initial commercialization of rechargeable lithium technology has been through the introduction of coin or button cells. The eadiest of these systems was the Li—C system commercialized by Matsushita Electric Industries (MEI) in 1985 (26,27). The negative electrode consists of a lithium alloy and the positive electrode consists of activated carbon [7440-44-0J, carbon black, and binder. The discharge curve is not flat, but rather slopes from about 3 V to 1.5 V in a manner similar to a capacitor. Use of lithium alloy circumvents problems with cycle life, dendrite formation, and safety. However, the system suffers from generally low energy density. 

An attempt to forecast the further shrinkage of integrated circuits has been made by Gleason (2000). He starts out with some up-to-date statistics during the past 25 years, the number of transistors per unit area of silicon has increased by a factor of 250, and the density of circuits is now such that 20,000 cells (each with a transistor and capacitor) would fit within the cross-section of a human hair. This kind of relentless shrinkage of circuits, following an exponential time law, is known as Moore s law (Moore was one of the early captains of this industry). The question is whether the operation of Moore s Law will continue for some years yet Gleason says that attempts to forecast an end to the validity of Moore s Law have failed dismally it has continued to hold well beyond expectations . The problems at... 

It is widely used by the electronics industry in the manufacture of capacitors, where the oxide film is an efficient insulator, and as a filament or filament support. Indeed, it was for a while widely used to replace carbon as the filament in incandescent light bulbs but, by about 1911, was, itself superseded by tungsten. 

The manufacture of ionic liquids on an industrial scale is also to be considered. Some ionic liquids have already been commercialized for electrochemical devices (such as capacitors) applications [45]. 

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