UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2019. Rosatom’s TVEL’s Novouralsk-based member enterprise CentroTech Scientific & Production Association recently introduced a newer, safer, and more energy-efficient technology for making negative electrodes for cadmium-nickel generators at the plant, Ural Electrochemical Combine’s press service reports.

The plant originally started looking into new ways to make the electrodes in order to cut back on the cost of materials, enhance work safety, increase the production’s technological efficiency, and make the process less labor-intensive.

It took the company three months to test-drive the technology and get it properly adjusted for the existing equipment. The first one hundred cadmium-nickel generators with the new negative electrode have been tested successfully at every production stage and got shipped to customer at the end of last year. This year, the customer is to receive 580 more generators all in all.

‘The new technology’s primary advantage is that no traces of cadmium, Grade I hazard class substance, can contaminate the space around the electrode unit any more. Another safety improvement is that the production facility grew more compact, which means fewer chances of cadmium spreading across other rooms in the department. Finally, we managed to cut our cadmium, nickel, and electric power spending by around 40%, 20%, and at least 4,000 kilowatt-hours, respectively,’ says CentroTech’s Director-General Ilya Kavelashvili.

Now CentroTech Scientific & Production Association has plenty of experience in making nickel-cadmium generators that get used in various electric power supply systems and are capable of providing the largest continuous current in the load; they also have a long lifespan. The company keeps working to improve the technology for making negative electrodes for cadmium-nickel generators.