Li-ion batteries: news, progress, history and background

One of the most important decisions facing designers of plug-in electric or hybrid vehicles is related to battery choice. Now, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have used a life cycle analysis to examine three vehicle battery types to determine which does the best job of powering the vehicle while causing the least amount of environmental impact during its production .... The researchers were surprised to find that except for ozone depletion potential, the NiMH battery performed significantly worse than the two Li-ion batteries for all impact categories. The researchers attributed this difference to the greater use phase efficiency of Li-ion relative to NiMH, and the fact that each kilogram of Li-ion battery is expected to store between 2 to 3 times more energy than the other battery types over the course of its lifetime. ... Batteries for the future

Bendy batteries a step closer 25 February 2011 Scientists from Korea have found that with the use of graphene nanosheets, the fabrication of bendable power sources is possible.  Electronic devices are no longer confined to the home or office. We travel with them, carry them around and even wear them. To make equipment like roll-up displays and wearable devices achievable, the power source that supplies them must also become more flexible.  The major challenge of developing a truly bendable power source has been the shortage of material that is both highly flexible and has superior electronic conductivity. Polymers are typically used, but they can degrade at relatively low temperatures, which makes them less than ideal.  Kisuk Kang from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejon, and colleagues, have developed a graphene based hybrid electrode producing a flexible lithium rechargeable battery. The cathode material, in this case V2O5, is grown on graphene paper usi...

Ioxus Inc. is an up and comer in the energy storage industry that has plans this Monday to announce a new hybrid storage device that it hopes will radically alter batteries used in the auto, medical, and consumer electronics industries. The teased product is said to be roughly the size of a typical C-cell battery and combines the fast charge / discharge benefits of ultracapacitors with the impressive energy-to-weight ratio of a lithium-ion electrode. As a result, Ioxus says the hybrid devices can store more than double the energy of traditional ultracapacitors and charge in a matter of seconds. The catch is that the hybrids have shorter life spans of 20,000 cycles compared to millions of cycles for typical ultracapacitors. We're also taking this with a grain of skepticism until these claims are proven in the field. Some brief digging though did unearth an article written by MIT researchers and published in Scientific American last year that discusses the possible benefits of s...

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Article in Journal of Materials Chemistry titled as Flexible and planar graphene conductive additives for lithium-ion batteries and describes yet another graphene application in Li ion batteries. Authors claimed that Graphene is introduced into a lithium-ion battery (LIB) as a type of novel but powerful planar conductive additive and the flexible graphene-based conducting network is characterized by a novel “plane-to-point” conducting mode with exceptional electron transport properties and unique geometrical nature (a soft and ultrathin planar structure). With a much lower fraction of graphene additives than those of commercial carbon based additives, the graphene-introduced LiFePO4 cathode shows better charge/discharge performance than commercial cases. Graphene also shows a better performance compared to carbon nanotubes, another type of novel conductive additive with similar fractions. These results present us an indication that graphene will possibly find early application...

New hybrid materials of Mn3O4 nanoparticles on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheets for lithium ion battery applications have been developed in Department of Chemistry and Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University. They selectively grow of Mn3O4 nanoparticles on RGO sheets, and in contrast to free particle growth in solution it allowed for the electrically insulating Mn3O4 nanoparticles to be wired up to a current collector through the underlying conducting graphene network. The Mn3O4 nanoparticles formed on RGO show a high specific capacity up to 900 mAh/g, near their theoretical capacity, with good rate capability and cycling stability, owing to the intimate interactions between the graphene substrates and the Mn3O4 nanoparticles grown atop. The Mn3O4/RGO hybrid could be a promising candidate material for a high-capacity, low-cost, and environmentally friendly anode for lithium ion batteries. Such approach may offer a ...

Here are some new testings (overcharge) of Li-ion polymer batteries enjoy video taken from http://www.lithumbattery.com/

Angewandte Chemie International Edition Volume 49 Issue 12, Pages 2146 - 2149 Hyejung Kim, Minho Seo, Mi-Hee Park, Jaephil Cho, Prof. * School of Energy Engineering and Converging Research Center for Innovative Battery Technologies, Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology, Ulsan, 689-798 (Korea) http://jpcho.com KEYWORDS batteries • carbon • electrochemistry • lithium • silicon ABSTRACT Well-dispersed Si nanocrystals with sizes of approximately 5, 10, and 20 nm were prepared in reverse micelles at high pressure and 380 °C and investigated as anode materials for lithium batteries. The 10 nm sized nanocrystals show a first charge capacity y of 3380 mAh g-1 and the highest capacity retention of 81 % after 40 cycles, which can be increased to 96 % by carbon coating (see picture). Received: 8 November 2009; Revised: 27 December 2009 (DOI) 10.1002/anie.200906287 source: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123295109/abstract

New international safety rules agreed for electric cars : "An international safety standard for electric and hybrid vehicles has been adopted this week as the ‘World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations’. The adoption of the new type approval clears the way for the early uptake of electric cars across 41 countries which have mutual recognition of this approval. The new regulations cover all [...] " (Via Green cars: latest news .)

1. - Just a joke 2. Really bad - laptop battery explosion 3. Home experiment - soft pack Li-ion battery overcharge 4. Old laptop no the heater plate - frying -> explosion (what you expect?)

AGAIN! News from Panasonic Corporation which announced (highly dengerous) the development of two new 18650-type (18 mm in diameter, 65 mm in height) high-capacity lithium-ion battery cells for use in laptop computers and in energy applications including electric vehicles. The newly-developed but not released yet with high-capacity 3.4 Ah and 4.0 Ah lithium-ion battery cells (will?) have an improved nickel-based positive electrode (Panasonic’s proprietary positive electrode material based on LiNiO 2 , allowing for high capacity and durability). The 4.0 Ah cell uses a silicon-based alloy for the negative electrode instead of carbon, and offers a volumetric energy density of 800 Wh/L, compared to the 620 Wh/L in the current 2.9 Ah cells. In October, Panasonic Corporation announced a 1.5 kWh battery module from 18650-type (18 mm in diameter x 65 mm in length) lithium-ion battery cells to provide energy storage solutions for a wide range applications. Multiple units can be connected in ser...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

One of the means that electrically powered vehicles used to maximize their range is regenerative braking where the kinetic energy of the vehicle is recaptured during deceleration and than released during acceleration. The problem is that most batteries can't absorb energy quickly enough to capture all the available energy. This is where capacitors have an advantage since they can absorb energy a lot faster than batteries and do it a lot more times. Unfortunately the total energy capacity is limited, which also limits their usefulness. While a lithium ion battery pack could contain enough energy to drive a vehicle a couple of hundred miles, an ultra-capacitor pack would be lucky to get a few miles.   Original post

New Pillared Graphene Material Offers Enhanced Hydrogen Storage; Close to DOE Target 1 October 2008 Volumetric hydrogen uptake for graphene (diamonds), (6,6) carbon nanotubes (squares), pillared material (triangles), and Li-doped pillared (stars) at (a) 77 K and (b) 300 K. Click to enlarge. Credit: ACS Researchers at the University of Crete (Greece) have designed a novel 3-D network nanostructure that almost meets the US Department of Energy (DOE) 2010 volumetric goals for hydrogen storage. The new pillared graphene material could theoretically store up to 41 grams of hydrogen per liter under ambient conditions; the DOE’s target is 45 g/L. Their study is scheduled for the 8 October issue of the ACS journal Nano Letters . Georgios K. Dimitrakakis, Emmanuel Tylianakis, and George E. Froudakis designed a unique structure consisting of parallel graphene sheets—layers of carbon just one atom thick—stabilized by vertical columns of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The nanoporous material has by desi...

London, January 3 (ANI): It seems that the dream of environmentally friendly aviation is very close to reality, with a French test pilot successfully flying an aircraft propelled by an electric motor. The Electra is a single-seater plane, made up of wood and fabric. Having flown for 48 minutes for 50km around the southern Alps, it has proved that applying battery power to a fixed-wing standard aircraft is possible. The APAME group, founded to develop green aviation, announced this groundbreaking flight. This will be a real aeroplane that will have an airworthiness certificate. It is a machine built for anyone with a pilots licence, Times Online quoted Anne Lavrand, president of APAME, as saying. She also revealed that her team, financed by French aerospace companies and other donors, started working on this project quietly 18 months ago. When we began, no one believed we could do it, she said. Lavrand further revealed that her group used a Souricette kit aircraft, and adapted to it a 2...

It was September 20, 1995 when Apple recalled their new PowerBook 5300 for the first time. The PowerBook 5300 was a big product for Apple. The company had entered into a cross-promotional deal with the producers of Mission Impossible wherein the computer appeared (with a command line interface) throughout the blockbuster movie. Apple was also charging a phenomenal price for the machine, a whopping $6,500 for the 5300ce partly because it was Apple’s first PowerPC-based laptop. The good times didn’t last long. Less than a month after it was introduced, the machine was recalled when preproduction units caught on fire. The problem was blamed on batteries manufactured by Sony, but Apple recalled all the computers sold to that point (claiming that was less than 100 units). The 5300 went on to be recalled again for case problems, but the first recall (and the impetus for a lot of jokes) came this week in 1995 less than a month after the PowerBook 5300 had been released. Source

Yet another "hybrid" type or some kind of battery/capacitor energy storage concept... Battery-like device could power electric cars - CNN.com : "AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine. An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised 'technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries,' meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline. By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 50 miles of gasoline-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels. 'It's a paradigm shift,' said Ian Clifford, chief executive of Toronto-base...

Press release, August 29; Eric Mah, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 29 August 2007] Greater China is one of the largest manufacturing centers for lithium batteries, with China accounting for 16.9% and Taiwan for 5.6% of worldwide production, according to market research firm Research and Markets (RM). Greater China makers produce primary (non-rechargeable) and secondary (rechargeable) lithium batteries, noted RM, adding that some of the lithium battery makers in the region produce lithium battery cells – the basic component of a battery or battery pack. These makers are large-scale companies that also supply battery cells to other lithium battery manufacturers, added the firm. Production of rechargeable lithium batteries in China is expected to rise by 11% from 950 million units in 2006 to 1 billion units in 2007, according to the China Industrial Association of Power Sources (CIAPS). Most manufacturers plan to increase their production by up to 50% in the next two years and those already running...

Sony is now licensed to use 3M technology in its batteries - Jul. 30, 2007 NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- 3M Co. said Monday it has reached agreement in patent settlement with Sony Corp. over the technology in a type of battery used in laptop computers and cell phones. St. Paul, Minn.-based 3M said in a statement that Sony's Sony Electronics unit is now a licensed source of lithium ion batteries containing 3M cathode technology. Specific terms of the settlement are confidential, 3M said. Sony was not immediately available for comment. 3M said the patent dispute against Sony and other companies was filed in the U.S. District Court for Minnesota and the United States International Trade Commission in March. The company said it holds patents on cathode materials containing nickel, manganese and cobalt, which the company says are an important technology for current and next generation lithium ion batteries. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are found in laptop computers, mobile phones an...

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