Lithium-ion Battery Technology- Improvements And Companies

John Goodenough invented lithium-ion batteries in 1980, and Sony commercialized them in 1991. Lithium-ion batteries have become the dominant rechargeable battery chemistry in nearly all industries over the last decade. In many ways, lithium-ion is superior to previous popular chemistries (lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, and alkaline). 

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With the advancement of technology, a safe and powerful battery is in high demand. Lithium is the most energy-dense chemistry in use, and it can also be the safest with added features. Because lithium energy is a hot topic of research, new chemistries emerge every year.

Lithium-ion Battery Technology Improvements

Lithium-ion batteries aided the microelectronics revolution and are now the preferred power source for portable electronic devices. Their success in the portable electronics market is due to the fact that they offer higher gravimetric and volumetric energy densities than other rechargeable systems.

●Increasing the Voltage of the Cells

The desire to increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries by increasing the operating voltage, charge-storage capacity, or both has sparked a lot of interest. Because the current anode operating voltage is already close to that of Li/Li+, the only way to increase the cell voltage is to increase the operating voltage of the cathode. 

The three cathode structures provide compositions with operating voltages greater than the currently used voltages of 4.3 V vs Li/Li+, but the cathode surface with operating voltages greater than 4.3 V is unstable in contact with the organic solvents EC, DEC, DMC, and others used in the electrolyte.

●Increasing the Capacity of Charge-Storage

Because there is currently no practical solution for increasing the cathode operating voltage, much emphasis is being placed on increasing the charge-storage capacities of both the anode and the cathode. Anodes and cathodes that undergo a conversion reaction with lithium rather than an insertion reaction have recently received a lot of attention in this field. 

While the number of crystallographic sites available for reversible insertion/extraction of lithium limits the capacity of insertion-reaction electrodes, conversion-reaction electrodes are not limited in this way. They have capacities that are up to an order of magnitude greater.

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Despite the limited energy density dictated by the number of crystallographic sites available as well as structural and chemical instabilities at a deep charge, current lithium-ion technology based on insertion-reaction cathodes and anodes will continue for the foreseeable future. Conversion-reaction anodes and cathodes have received a lot of attention because they have up to an order of magnitude higher capacities than insertion-reaction electrodes, but their practical viability has been questioned. 

Recently, there has been renewed interest in using lithium metal as an anode and replacing liquid electrolytes with solid electrolytes, as these can provide safer cells with higher operating voltages and charge-storage capacity, but only time will tell whether they are practical.

With the challenges of the alternatives, a viable near-term strategy is to focus on high-nickel layered oxide cathodes, liquid electrolytes compatible with and forming stable SEI on both graphite anode and high-Ni cathodes, cell engineering innovations to fabricate thicker electrodes and reduce inactive components, and novel system integration to realize safer, long-life, affordable batteries.

Lithium-ion Battery Technology Companies

Internal combustion vehicles (ICE) are being displaced by electric vehicles (EVs), just as horse-drawn carriages were once displaced by ICE vehicles. Next-generation battery technology and an abundant supply of lithium, the key raw material for lithium-ion batteries, are required to power this transition to electric power.

Electric vehicles currently account for 24% of total global lithium demand. This number is expected to increase too. Electronics, energy storage, and other gadgets will account for the remaining 21%. Lithium batteries are increasingly being used in telecommunications, energy storage, government projects, and toys.

Tesla is a global leader in the use of lithium batteries in electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Tesla is one of the world's largest consumers of lithium, which it uses in its growing production of electric vehicles. Panasonic is a top three global EV battery manufacturer from Japan, and another major player in lithium battery technology is Tesla's long-time partner. In the telecom sector, Samsung, Panasonic, and LG are also global leaders.

Reliance, Mahindra, and Ola are some of the companies that are planning to build lithium battery manufacturing plants in India to meet the country's lithium battery demand.

Li-Ion batteries power Reliance's telecom towers. Ambri and Reliance are in talks to build a battery manufacturing giga-factory in India. Ambri is a liquid metal battery company based in the United States. By mid-2022, Ola expects to produce 15% of the world's e-scooters. In India, Adani, Suzuki, Mahindra, JSW, and Hero are all planning multibillion-dollar battery plants.

Lithium-ion Battery Chemistry

The reactions that power the battery use lithium ions (Li+). In a lithium-ion cell, both electrodes are made of materials that can intercalate or 'absorb' lithium ions. When charged ions of an element can be 'held' inside the structure of a host material without causing significant disruption, this is known as intercalation. The lithium ions are 'tied' to an electron within the structure of the anode in a lithium-ion battery. The intercalated lithium ions are released from the anode and travel through the electrolyte solution to be absorbed in the cathode when the battery discharges.

When the battery is charged, the cathode undergoes an oxidation reaction, which results in the loss of certain negatively charged electrons. An equal number of positively charged intercalated lithium ions are disintegrated into the electrolyte solution to maintain the charge balance in the cathode.

Oxidation-reduction (Redox) reactions occur inside a lithium-ion battery.

At the cathode, reduction takes place. Lithium-cobalt oxide is formed when cobalt oxide reacts with lithium ions (LiCoO2). The half-reaction is as follows:

CoO2 + Li+ + e- → LiCoO2

The anode is where oxidation takes place. Graphite (C6) and lithium ions are formed by the graphite intercalation compound LiC6. The half-reaction is as follows:

LiC6 → C6 + Li+ + e-

The complete reaction (from left to right = discharging, from right to left = charging) is as follows:

LiC6 + CoO2 ? C6 + LiCoO2

Lithium-ion batteries have dominated the portable electronics market, are making inroads into the electric vehicle market, and are poised to enter the utility market for grid energy storage.