
Located in Somerville, MA, five miles north of the Boston Logan Airport,
TRACER occupies over 40,000 sq. ft. in four contiguous buildings.
The manufacturing facilities of TRACER include 10,000 sq. ft. of space
equipped for the manufacture of battery packs and 10,000 sq. ft. of space
equipped (four dry rooms, five Nd/YAG laser welders, dry boxes, inorganic
electrolyte preparation stations, cathode manufacturing station, spiral-wound
electrode manufacturing station) for the manufacture of lithium primary and
secondary cells. In 1997, TRACER added 10,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space
with two new dry rooms, two electrode winding stations, automated electrode
coating station, and organic electrolyte preparation station. This newly
equipped production facility provided added production capacity to a facility
which is operated now at approximately 95% capacity (over 500 specialty lithium
primary cell/day); TRACER made this commitment to expand and modernize its
facilities because it believes that the technical approaches and business
opportunities it has identified in the development of specialty lithium primary
and secondary cells warrants such an investment. TRACER also manufactures
approximately 1000 lithium-primary battery packs per month at this facility.
The research laboratory of TRACER includes 4,000 sq. ft. of space equipped
with all of the facilities (wet lab benches, hoods, dry-room etc.) normal to a
company which does research and development work in electrochemistry, and in
lithium cell development. In-house laboratory instrumentation include
potentiostats, function generators, polarography equipment, coulometers, cell
cyclers and other test equipment used in electrochemical research and battery
testing. TRACER has eight computer systems whose use is reserved for data
logging and storage.
In 1993, TRACER established a subsidiary (Kunzite Division), in St.
Petersburg, Russia, staffed by three internationally known electrochemists (Drs.
D. Agafonov, B. Karbasov, Y. Posine) with 5 staff scientists in support who are
educated to the Ph.D. level in electrochemistry, organic chemistry and materials
sciences. The laboratory facilities of this subsidiary are leased from the
Technological Institute of St. Petersburg; these facilities are completely
equipped with all the equipment needed to carry out research in electrochemistry
because this Institute is one of the major facilities in Russia which has
carried out such work over the past decades under support from the Defense
Department.
TRACER facilities meet the environmental laws of federal, Massachusetts and
local Governments for, but not limited to, the following groupings: airborne
emissions, waterborne effluents, external radiation levels, outdoor noise, solid
and bulk waste disposal practices, and handling and storage of toxic and
hazardous materials.
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