Lithium battery history

The history of the lithium battery

In 1970, M.S. Whittingham of Exxon used titanium sulfide as the positive electrode material and lithium metal as the negative electrode material to make the first lithium battery. The positive electrode material of the lithium battery is manganese dioxide or thionyl chloride, and the negative electrode is lithium. After the battery is assembled, the battery has a voltage and does not need to be charged. Lithium-ion batteries (Li-ionBatteries) are the development of lithium batteries. For example, the button battery used in the previous camera was a lithium battery. The battery can also be charged, but the cycle performance is not good, and lithium crystals are easily formed during the charge and discharge cycle, causing internal short circuit of the battery, so in general, the battery is forbidden to be charged.

In 1982, university of Illinois institute of technology (the Illinois Institute of Technology) R.R.A Garwal and J.R.S Elman found embedded lithium ion has the properties of the graphite, the process is quick, and reversible. At the same time, made of metallic lithium batteries, much attention has been paid to its safety problems, so people try to take advantage of the characteristics of lithium ion embedded graphite production of rechargeable batteries. The first available lithium-ion graphite electrode successfully trial-produced by bell LABS.

In 1983, M. Thackeray and J. Goodenough discovered that manganese spinel is an excellent positive electrode material with low cost, stability and excellent conductivity and lithium guiding properties. The decomposition temperature is high, and the oxidation is much lower than that of lithium cobaltate. Even if short circuit or overcharge occurs, the risk of burning and explosion can be avoided.

In 1989, A. Manthiram and J. Goodenough discovered that a positive electrode with a polymeric anion would produce a higher voltage.

In 1992, Sony Corporation of Japan invented a lithium battery using a carbon material as a negative electrode and a lithium-containing compound as a positive electrode. In the process of charge and discharge, no metal lithium exists, only lithium ions, which is a lithium ion battery. Subsequently, lithium-ion batteries revolutionized the face of consumer electronics. Such a battery using lithium cobaltate as a positive electrode material is still the main power source for portable electronic devices.

In 1996, Padhi and Goodenough discovered that phosphates with olivine structure, such as lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), are safer than traditional cathode materials, especially high temperature resistance, and overcharge resistance is far superior to traditional lithium ion battery materials. Therefore, it has become the cathode material of the current mainstream high-current discharge power lithium battery.

Throughout the history of battery development, we can see three characteristics of the current development of the world battery industry. First, the rapid development of green batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen-nickel batteries, etc.; the second is the conversion of primary batteries to batteries, which is consistent with sustainable Development strategy; Third, the battery is further developing in a small, light and thin direction. Among commercial rechargeable batteries, lithium ion batteries have the highest specific energy, especially polymer lithium ion batteries, which can achieve thinning of rechargeable batteries. It is precisely because lithium-ion batteries have higher volumetric energy and mass than specific energy, can be charged and pollution-free, and have the three characteristics of the current battery industry development, so there is a rapid growth in developed countries. The development of telecommunications and information markets, especially the large-scale use of mobile phones and notebook computers, has brought market opportunities to lithium-ion batteries. The lithium-ion battery in the lithium-ion battery will gradually replace the liquid electrolyte lithium-ion battery with its unique safety advantages, and become the mainstream of lithium-ion batteries. The polymer lithium-ion battery is known as the "21st century battery", which will open up a new era of storage batteries, and the development prospects are very optimistic.

In March 2015, Sharp and Professor Tanaka Hyun of Kyoto University jointly developed a lithium-ion battery with a service life of 70 years. The long-lived lithium-ion battery produced by the trial has a volume of 8 cubic centimeters and a charge and discharge frequency of 25,000 times. And Sharp said that after the long-life lithium-ion battery is actually charged and discharged 10,000 times, its performance is still stable.

Lithium was discovered in 1817 by the student of the Swedish chemist Bezilius, Alfetson, who named it Lithium. By 1950, Nakamoto and Maggien used the method of electrolytic melting of lithium chloride to obtain metal lithium, and industrial lithium was proposed by Gensa in 1893. Lithium is still produced by electrolytic LiCl. This method consumes a large amount of electric energy, and consumes 6,000 to 70,000 kWh per ton of lithium.

Lithium has served the medical profession primarily as an anti-gout drug for more than 100 years after his birth. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) first recognized that lithium batteries can be used as an efficient battery. This is because the battery voltage is closely related to the activity of the negative electrode metal. As a very active alkali metal, lithium batteries can provide higher voltages. For example, a lithium battery can provide a voltage of 3V, while a lead battery has only 2.1V, while a carbon zinc battery has only 1.5V. According to P=UI, the lithium battery can output higher power at the same current.

As element No. 3, lithium existing in nature consists of two stable isotopes, 6Li and 7Li, so the relative atomic mass of lithium is only 6.9. This means that metal lithium provides more electrons than other reactive metals at the same mass. In addition, lithium has another advantage. Since the lithium ion has a small ionic radius, lithium ions are more likely to move in the electrolyte than other large ions, and an effective and rapid migration between the positive and negative electrodes can be achieved during charge and discharge, thereby allowing the entire electrochemical reaction to proceed.

Metal lithium has many advantages, but there are still many difficulties to overcome in manufacturing lithium batteries. First, lithium is a very active alkali metal element that reacts with water and oxygen, and it reacts with nitrogen at room temperature. This results in the storage, use or processing of metallic lithium being much more complicated than other metals, and the environmental requirements are very high. Therefore, lithium batteries have not been used for a long time. With the research of scientists, the technical obstacles of lithium batteries have been broken one by one, lithium batteries have gradually entered the stage, and lithium batteries have entered a large-scale practical stage.

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