Thermal batteries are designed to activate at high temperatures (~500℃), therefore, the electrodes used in these systems are typically made into pellet form using compression molding techniques that do not involve polymer binders. However, the compression molding technique poses limitations in scaling up the electrode area without increasing thickness for high-power properties. Additionally, the tape casting method has been studied as a way to solve with, but too low a loading level is still an obstacle to practical use. This study fabricated a film cathode of high loading level (35.79 mAh·cm^-2) using the tape casting method for these problem. As utilized fabricated cathode, it investigated the influence of electrode thickness and density on electrochemical performance. Furthermore, a film cathode with a larger area but the same amount of active material as the pellet was fabricated, enabling the design of high-power cells with the same energy density. We expect that the fabricated film cathode with a high loading level and scalable area will enable the development of various thermal battery designs.

The templated grain growth (TGG) method has gained significant attention for its ability to produce highly textured piezoelectric ceramics with significantly enhanced performance, making it a promising method for transducer and actuator applications. However, the texturing process using the TGG method requires the optimization of multiple steps, which can be challenging for beginners in this field. Therefore, in this tutorial, we provide an overview of the TGG method mainly based on our previous published works, including its various processing steps such as synthesizing anisotropic-shaped templates with size and size distribution control using the molten salt synthesis technique, tape casting, and identifying key factors for proper alignment of the templates in the target matrix system. Our goal is to provide a resource that can serve as a basic reference for researchers and engineers looking to improve their understanding and utilization of the TGG method for producing textured piezoelectric ceramics.

Integrating dielectric materials into LTCC is a convenient method to increase the integration density in electronic circuits. To enable co-firing of the high-k and low-k dielectric LTCC materials in a multi-material hetero-laminate, the shrinkage characteristics of both materials should be similar. Moreover, thermal expansion mismatch between materials during co-firing should be minimized. The alternating stacking of an LTCC with silica filler and that with calcium-zirconate filler was observed to examine the use of the same glass in different LTCCs to minimize the difference in shrinkage and thermal expansion coefficient. For the LTCC of silica filler with a low dielectric constant and that of calcium zirconate filler with a high dielectric constant, the amount of shrinkage was examined through a thermomechanical analysis, and the predicted appropriate fraction of each filler was applied to green sheets by tape casting. The green sheets of different fillers were alternatingly laminated to the thickness of 500 ㎛. As a result of examining the junction, it was observed through SEM that a complete bonding was achieved by constrained sintering in the structure of ‘calcium zirconate 50 vol%-silica 30 vol%-calcium zirconate 50 vol%’.

In this study, image analysis and surface roughness measurements using an optical microscope are presented as a method to quantitatively evaluate the results of screen printing. Using this method, the squeegee speed, which is the printing process condition, and the printability of the electrode according to the screen mesh were evaluated. Increasing the squeegee speed in the printing process acts as a process element that increases the line width precision of the printed electrode and lowers the surface roughness of the printed surface. Furthermore, the edge roughness, which indicates the clarity of printing, was not significantly affected by the speed of the squeegee during printing. The print thickness increases in proportion to the squeegee speed, but is largely dependent on the screen thickness.

For machine learning techniques, a large amount of high-quality material property data should be accumulated. In this study, several data for an alumina tape casting process were produced with the variables of slurry viscosity, gap size, and coating speed. The alumina tapes were manufactured in the range of 1,000~6,000 cps for slurry viscosity, 300~1,000 ㎛ for gap size, and 0.5~2.0 m/min for coating speed. As a result, the lower the viscosity, coating speed, and gap size, the more pore-free tapes could be manufactured. The viscosity of the slurry limited the minimum thickness of the tape. Green sheets with high packing density were manufactured from the slurry of 100~6,000 cps slurry viscosity, coating speed of 0.5 m/min, and a 300~500 ㎛ gap size.

A unimorph piezoelectric cantilever generator with an interdigitated electrode (IDE) was developed for vibration energy harvester applications driven in the longitudinal mode. Hard lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramic with a high Q_m of 1,280 was used as the piezoelectric active material. Ten PZT sheets produced by tape casting were laminated and co-fired with an Ag/Pd IDE at 1,050℃ for 2 h. The approximately 280 μm-thick co-fired PZT laminate with the IDE was attached to a stainless steel substrate with an adhesive epoxy for the fabrication of an IDE unimorph cantilever. Its energy harvesting characteristics were evaluated: an output power of 1.1 μW at 120 Hz across the resistive load of 700 k□ was obtained, corresponding to a normalized power factor of 4.1 μW/(G²·cm³).

A piezoelectric cantilever energy harvester (PCEH) driven in longitudinal (3-3) vibration mode was fabricated, and its electrical properties were evaluated by varying the resistive load. A commercial PZT piezoelectric ceramic with a high piezoelectric charge constant (d₃₃) of 520 pC/N and the interdigitated (IDT) electrode pattern was used to fabricate the PCEH driven in longitudinal vibration. The IDT Ag electrode embedded piezoelectric laminates were co-fired at 850℃ for 2 h. The 3-3 mode PCEH was successfully fabricated by attaching the piezoelectric laminates to a SUS304 elastic substrate. The PCEH exhibited a high output power of 3.8 mW across the resistive load of 100 kΩ at 100 Hz and 1.5 G. This corresponds to a power density of 10.3 mW/cm³ and a normalized global power factor of 4.56 mW/g²·cm³. Given the other PCEH driven in transverse (3-1) vibration mode, the 3-3 mode PCEH could be better for vibration energy harvesting applications.

Powder compaction technology is widely used to prepare thermal battery components. This method, however, is limited by the size, thickness, and geometry of the battery components. This limitation leads to excessive cell capacity, overweight, and higher cost of the pellets, which decreases the specific capacities and delays the activation time of thermal batteries. FeS₂ thin-film cathodes were fabricated by tape-casting technology and analyzed by SEM and EDS in this paper. The residual organic binder of the FeS₂ thin-film cathodes decreased with the temperature of the heat treatment, which improved the specific capacity because of the lower resistance. Specific capacities of the FeS₂ thin-film cathodes decreased because of the higher residual binder and the restrictive reaction of active materials with molten salts as the thickness increased. FeS₂ thin-film cathodes showed much higher specific capacity (1,212.2 As/g) than pellet cathodes (860.7 As/g) at the optimal heat-treatment temperature (230℃).

Piezoelectric thick films of soft Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) based commercial material (S55) were fabricated using a conventional tape casting method. Ag-Pd electrodes were printed on the piezoelectric film at room temperature and all 5 layered films with a dimension of 12 ㎜× 16 ㎜were successfully laminated for a multi-layered piezoelectric ceramic actuator. The laminated specimens were co-fired at 1,100℃ for 1 h. A flat layered and dense microstructure was obtained for the 112 ㎛thick piezoelectric actuator after sintering process. Thereafter, a prototype piezoelectric speaker was fabricated using the multi-layered piezoelectric ceramic actuator which can operate as a bimorph. Its SPL (sound pressure level) characteristic was also evaluated for speaker application. Frequency response revealed that the output SPL with a root mean square voltage of 10 V increased gradually to the highest peak of 87.5 dB for 1.5 kHz and exhibited a relatively stable behavior over the measured frequency range (≤20 kHz) at a distance of 10 cm, implying that the fabricated piezoelectric speaker is potential for speaker applications.

Piezoelectric thick films of a soft Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ (PZT) based commercial material were produced by a conventional tape casting method. Thereafter, the interdigitated (IDT) Ag-Pd electrode pattern was printed on the 25 ㎛ thick piezoelectric film at room temperature. Co-firing of the 10-layer laminated piezoelectric thick films was conducted at 1,100℃ and 1,150℃ for 1 h, respectively. Piezoelectric cantilever energy harvesters were successfully fabricated using the IDT electrode pattern embedded piezoelectric laminates for 3-3 operation mode. Their energy harvesting characteristics were investigated with an excitation of 120 Hz and 1 g under various resistive loads (ranging from 10 kΩ to 200 kΩ). A parabolic increase of voltage and a linear decrease of current were shown with an increase of resistive load for all the energy harvesters. In particular, a high output power of 3.64 mW at 100 kΩ was obtained from the energy harvester (sintered at 1,150℃).

Convectional PZT based piezoelectric ceramics have to sinter at high temperature about 1,200℃ for their suitable electrical properties. However, some issues: low temperature sintering piezoelectric ceramic composition and reliable internal electrode, have recently attracted a great deal of interest as a highly efficient multi-layered piezoelectric ceramics. In order to optimize low temperature sintering conditions of thick-film PMN-PZ-PT ceramic, it was investigated sintering and piezoelectric properties according to the change of LiBiO₂contents. Thus, the superior piezoelectric properties were found at the pallet type PMN-PZ-PT optimized with low sintering processing at 925℃ including 7 wt% LiBiO₂sintering aid. Consequentially, we successfully manufactured thick-film PMN-PZ-PT ceramics, which had superior piezoelectric and dielectric properties, with 5 wt% of LiBiO₂sintering aid at temperature of 900℃.

A new water energy harvester module, which is composed of piezoelectric bimorph cantilevers, harvesting circuit and a shaft with 16 impellers at a center axis, was fabricated for energy harvesting application. High energy density Pb(Zr0.54Ti0.46)O3 + 0.2 wt% Cr2O3 + 1.0 wt% Nb2O5 (PZT-CN) thick film obtained by tape casting method was used for the bimorph cantilever. The PZT-CN bimorph cantilever with a proof mass of 49 g exhibited extremely high output power of 22.5 mW (24 mW//cm3) at resonance frequency of 11 Hz. In addition, the fabricated water energy harvester has a cylindrical structure with 48 bimorph cantilevers clamped at inner surface. A significantly high output power of 433 mW was obtained at a rotation speed of 120 rpm with a resistive load of 500 Ω for the water energy harvester.

We fabricated piezoelectric unimorph cantilever generators (UCG) using Pb(Zr0.54Ti0.46)O3 + 0.2 wt% Cr2O3 + 1.0 wt% Nb2O5 (PZCN) piezoelectric thick films, which were produced by a tape casting method. The PZCN thick films were tailored with same width and thickness but different lengths from 7.7 to 57.7 mm in order to evaluate optimized UCG for energy harvesting device applications. When the length of PZCN film was increased, the resonance frequency of UCG was slightly increased from 7 Hz to 8 Hz, which could be due to enlarged area of the highly stiff piezo-ceramic film. However, the output power was proportionally increased with the length of PZCT film and it reached 4.68 mW (1.221 mW/cm3) when the film`s length was 57.7 mm under 25 g of tip mass at 8 Hz, which is sufficient for micro-scale device applications.