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℃).
