Most of our Measurement While Drilling (MWD) and Logging While Drilling (LWD) battery packs for the oil and gas industry are built using Lithium Thionyl Chloride cells.  Cells utilizing this chemistry suffer from passivation and must be de-passivated before use.

SWE has written a whitepaper explaining the Who, What, When, Where and Why of both Passivation and De-Passivation; an excerpt can be found below:

Lithium Battery Passivation: Who?

Passivation occurs in all lithium thionyl chloride battery cells. There is no escaping passivation… merely dealing with it
Will it affect you and your application? It probably will, but may not. It depends on some dynamic interactions between your tool’s current load pulse profile demands and the most recent condition of your lithium thionyl chloride cell based battery. One application may be fine…. another may have an issue.

Learn more about the What, When, Where and Why in our full whitepaper - click here to download.

Lithium Battery De-Passivation: Who?

The tool assembly technician or tool operator should assure that the lithium thionyl chloride battery has been properly de-passivated as a “conditioning” of the battery for proper tool operation. SWE recommends use of a properly sized, automatic de-passivation tool.

Learn more about the What, When, Where and Why in our full whitepaper - click here to download.