History of Lithium-Ion Batteries
Rechargeable battery evolution accelerated as the world transitioned to instruments enabled by silicon microchip technology from those of bulky electrical components. Mobile devices were designed to be powered by lightweight energy storage systems. The development of batteries for this rapidly evolving market was challenging:
• The nickel cadmium battery had been the only option for modern electronics for many years. It was a great improvement over carbon batteries.
• Later, nickel-hydride batteries became the technology of choice.
• Lithium-ion batteries became available in the 1990s, offering higher energy densities. This technology won out nickel-hydride.
The lithium-ion rechargeable battery offered advantages that were previously unavailable:
• Lithium is the lightest of all metals
• It had the largest electrochemical potential
• It provided the greatest energy content per unit volume
• It had no memory effect
• Its energy leakage rate was less than half that of NiCd and NiMH
• The first of its type was developed by Sony in 1990 with enough cycles to be usable for rechargeable batteries
o Mass production took place in 1991
o Panasonic and Sanyo quickly developed similar batteries that were on the market by 1994
Big advances in a mature industry like batteries were hard to find. Advances in the field focused only on finding slightly better materials or thinning the layers to improve performance.
Pre-A123 Systems: History of Lithium-Ion battery Innovation
Pre-A123 research group
Professor Yet-Ming Chiang directed a mid-sized research group at MIT that focused on design, synthesis and characterization of advanced inorganic materials; particularly toward electromechanically and electrochemically active materials. These materials can be defined as being capable of converting electrical energy into mechanical work, and of converting chemical energy into electrical work.
Chiang’s group began researching better lithium cathode materials in the mid-1990s. By early 2000, the group began wondering if there might be a new way to push the thickness limitations of battery cells. The wondered if battery layers could form themselves based on the Hamaker Constant for Different Materials. Materials in this case are very small particles. The Hamaker Constant is the measure of force between materials.
Hamaker Constant applied to designing an innovative battery system
Chiang describes how this related to the challenge of revolutionizing battery technology:
• “…the Hamaker Constant can have a negative value and cause two materials (particles) to repel each other if immersed in the right medium… we discovered and designed materials systems that organized themselves into an electrolyte separator between the anode and cathode.
Since its discovery, lithium has been primarily used in batteries, in chemical synthesis, and in alloys and glass. Although lithium is used in everyday things we use, l...
http://www.army.mil/article/79388/ (accessed March 16, 2014). Tiwari, G.N., and R.K. Mishra. Advanced Renewable Energy Sources. Cambridge, U.K.: RSC Publishing, 2011. U.S. Congressional Record - Senate.
This paper is a discussion of the role played by the ideals of the Enlightenment in the invention and assessment of artifacts like the electric battery. The first electric battery was built in 1799 by Alessandro Volta, who was both a natural philosopher and an artisan-like inventor of intriguing machines. I will show that the story of Volta and the battery contains three plots, each characterized by its own pace and logic. One is the story of natural philosophy, a second is the story of artifacts like the battery, and the third is the story of the loose, long-term values used to assess achievement and reward within and outside expert communities. An analysis of the three plots reveals that late eighteenth-century natural philosophers, despite their frequent celebration of 'useful knowledge,' were not fully prepared to accept the philosophical dignity of artifacts stemming from laboratory practice. Their hesitation was the consequence of a hierarchy of ranks and ascribed competence that was well established within the expert community. In order to make artifacts stemming from laboratory practice fully acceptable within the domain of natural philosophy, some important changes had yet to occur. Still, the case overwhelmingly shows that artifacts rightly belong to the long and varied list of items that make up the legacy of the Enlightenment.
The drawing demonstrates a film design with exchanging cation-particular (1) and anion-specific (2) layers. A cation-specific film (cation-trade layer) allows just positive particles to move through it. An anion-particular film (anion-trade layer) allows just entry to adversely charged particles. At every end of the layer stack, terminals (a cathode (3) and an anode (4)) are put, supplying an all-around circulated electrical field of direct current over the film stack. Between each film, spacers are set. Spacers ensure that there is room between films for the fluid procedure streams to stream along the layer surfaces.
Askeland, Donald R., and Pradeep P. Fulay. The Science and Engineering of Materials. Pacific Grove, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2003. Print.
Lithium-Ion Batteries are extremely popular in the technology industry for several reasons. First off, they are much lighter then other batteries because they are made with lightweight lithium (a light and reactive metal) and carbon. Second of all, they give the most power per pound. A Lithium-Ion Battery stores 150 watt-hours per kilogram. Compare that with a Nickel-Metal Hydride Battery which only has 100 watt-hours per kilogram or a Lead-Acid Battery which only has 25 watt-hours per kilogram. There is simply no comparison, the Lithium-Ion Battery has the most watt-hours per kilogram (Howstuffworks, 2009).
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our and future generations. I intend to combat this man-made disaster by applying materials science for sustainable technologies. Ever since reading “Stuff Matters” by Mark Miodownik, I have been fascinated by materials and their seemingly boundless potential to improve the world. Every breakthrough, either creating new materials or a developing a deeper understanding of old ones, shakes the course of modern progress. Sustainable practices have been slow to make their way into society, but this is improving on two fronts.
This is the most common battery that people use today like Energizer or Duracle batteries. The most common form of a primary cell is the Leclanche cell, invented by a French chemist Georges Leclanche in the 1860s. The electrolyte for this battery consisted of a mixture of ammonium chloride and zinc chloride made into a paste. The negative electrode is zinc, and is the outside shell of the cell, and the positive electrode is a carbon rod that runs through the center of the cell. This rod is surrounded by a mixture of carbon and manganese dioxide. This battery produces about 1.5 volts.
the discovery of carbon nanotubes, the strongest material known to man, a possible solution has been found.
Personal Statement Yun Yu Lai Macromolecule Science & Engineering Thanks to my family background, I have been immersed in the atmosphere of novel technology, particularly in the field of material science. My mother has worked as a project manager at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Material & Chemical Laboratories (MCL), which is served as the heart of high-tech research center in Taiwan. I always remember our family dinner time that she shares with us the latest prototype from MCL (E.g. liquid-crystal display, polarizer, and organic light emitter diode). It is an unforgettable memory that you could recognize the LCD monitor in the era of cathode ray tube (CRT) television.
Some examples of batteries are zinc carbon, alkaline, button batteries, lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydride, and lithium-ion. The three main types of batteries are zinc primary and secondary batteries. Even though batteries can be made with all sorts of different chemical electrolytes and electrodes, there is only primary and secondary, which are the two main types. Primary batteries are ordinary, disposable ones that can’t normally be recharged (Woodford, 2017, para.18). Secondary batteries can be recharged, sometimes hundreds of times (Woodford, 2017, para.18). The first rechargeable battery was made in 1859 by the French physicist Gaston Plate created a battery using two rolled sheets of lead submerged in sulfuric acid (Hymel, n.d., para.10). You can recharge them by sending a current in the opposite direction it normally flows in. When you charge your cell phone battery you are just running the battery in reverse. Alessandro Volta created the voltaic pile which was a stack of alternating zinc and silver disks, separated by brine-soaked cloth. The pile consisted as many as 30 disks. In imitation of the electric organ from a torpedo fish. It worked by connecting a wire to both ends of the pile, a steady current will flow. Volta found out that if he used different types of metals it could change the amount of current that is produced, and that he could increase the current by adding disks to the stack. In a letter dated March 20, 1800 which was addressed to joseph Banks, Volta first reported the electric pile. An advantage to them are the ease of manufacture and good mechanical stability. The cylindrical cell has good cycling ability, offers a long calendar life and is economical (“Types of Battery Cells”,2017). Cylindrical cells are heavy and have a low packaging density due to space cavities. Typical applications are
Advantages of these batteries are that it has a high density of energy and still has room to improve for future applications. This type of battery doesn’t need “priming” for first uses compared to other batteries. Also, it has a very low self-discharge, meaning the battery can retain its charge for prolonged periods of time. Furthermore, compared to other batteries, it can provide higher current to power tools and a more consistent power output, all the way until the battery is nearly dead.
cell we use today. The positive pole is a rode of carbon embedded in a
Chemistry is used in our everyday life in more ways than we may think. One way that we use chemistry is in the batteries in our cell phones. They are solely responsible for the phone actually turing on and being powered to run. Most cell phones are powered with a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. Lithium-ion batteries are commonly used in digital cameras and even in electric cars. These batteries are made of lithium cobalt cathode and carbon anode.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a source of alternative energy. With no negative effects on the environment, they could become extremely popular. A hydrogen fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to create water and energy. These simple energy source’s only drawback is how explosive the hydrogen gas inside is. Discussing with corporate manager, Andrew Dicks, we look into possible solutions and benefits for hydrogen fuel cells.