Lithium ion battery production
Highlights
► Sustainable battery manufacturing focus on more efficient methods and recycling. ► Temperature control and battery management system increase battery lifetime. ► Focus on increasing battery performance at low- and high temperatures. ► Production capacity of 100 MWh equals the need of 3000 full-electric cars.
Introduction
Metals and metal products play important role in our industrial development. Sustainable use of the earth’s resources in metal products production, end use, and recycling of metals has to be taken into account. Lithium ion batteries have developed rapidly and different types of chemistry have successfully been introduced. Common applications are power sources for cell phones, laptops, and other portable devices. Development is currently going on in larger applications such as energy storage, partly or fully powered electric vehicles, industrial vehicles, lifts, cranes, harbour machines, mining vehicles, boats, and submarines. Production of cells and battery management system electronics scaling from the individual cell to large modular solutions are ramping up globally. These new applications demand huge amounts of specially made products (copper and aluminium metal foils, electrolyte, lithium metal oxide, separator polymers, binders, graphite, conductive additives, cover bags, tabs, and production hardware). Over the long term, diminishing amounts of easily minable metal ores sites influence material availability. Iron, manganese, lithium, and nickel are still relatively abundant but metals like cobalt, and rare earths are becoming limited resources in coming decades.
The driving force behind this growing interest in Li-ion batteries is both the desire to increase energy efficiency and to reduce consumption of hydrocarbon-based fuels. The deployment of battery systems and the battery industry are expected to grow rapidly over the next 2 to 3 years.
The main challenges of Li-ion battery technology are related to chemistry, material deterioration, lifetime, operating temperatures, energy and power output, and, scaling up, long term material supply for some, and overall costs. Cost targets for Li-ion batteries are ambitious, only a couple of hundred dollars per kWh, while currently the price is closer to $1000 per kWh. In the near future, the price is expected to decrease only modestly due to more challenging chemistry and safety requirements of the electric vehicle (EV) industry.
Batteries are specific in their uses and one type does not fit all purposes. Challenges appear, for example, when individual cells are combined into in larger battery systems. In larger combinations, cooling is required to avoid hot spots and deterioration of lifetime due to overheating. Thermal control is also necessary for safety reasons.
Advanced Li-ion battery systems include electronic control known as the battery management systems (BMS) which is crucial when operating electric vehicles (EV), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). BMS also prevents battery overcharging and deep discharging of the battery.
Section snippets
Lithium ion batteries
Batteries are devices that convert stored chemical energy into electricity within a closed system. Electrochemical conversion occurs at two electrodes, viz., cathode and anode. The nature of the reaction is dependent on the chemistry of the electrodes. The power of the battery is more determined directly by the area of the electrodes in contact with the electrode while the energy content is depends more on mass and volume of the active material. In a rechargeable battery (secondary battery), if
Chemistry
Lithium cobalt oxide, LiCoO2, is the oldest type of lithium-ion batteries. It has been produced since 1991 (Sony). Many other structures developed since which include LiCo1/3Ni1/3Mn1/3O2 (NCM), LiMn2O4 (LMO), LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 (NCA), and LiFePO4 (LFP). Figure 3 shows an overview of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) electrode coating line. LFP is coated on special made thin aluminum foil keeping coating thickness and weight per surface area uniform. Separate lines for both cathode and anode are
Abuse tolerance
Lithium iron phosphate has increased safety compared to other lithium chemistries. Also Lithium titanate is considered as safe as LFP. Figure 7 shows EB’s cell after putting six zinc plated iron nails through the cell. No smoke or fire was observed and the cell voltage remained above 3 V overnight. That was an example of a safe soft cell shortage. In another experiment, a charged cell was immersed into artificial seawater. The electrolysis reaction of water powered by the battery cell occurred,
From a cell into a system
There is often confusion in the terms used to describe the various components of a battery system because the word “battery” is used when referring to both a single cell and for example a 12 V car battery comprising six cells. In this paper, we use the following terms (see figure 1):
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Cell: The most basic element of a battery (nominal voltage 3.2 V for a LFP cell).
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Module: A collection of cells connected in series/parallel providing a higher voltage and capacity than a single cell. A module includes
Conclusions
Lithium ion battery technology has developed hugely in recent years. This is due to new lithium electrode materials which have improved the battery performance towards needed targets. The lifetime can be extended by using clever algorithms in a battery system and keeping the system temperature sufficiently low. The battery management system (BMS) is crucial for larger battery systems. Lithium-ion cells are very susceptible to damage outside the allowed voltage range that is typically within
Acknowledgements
Comments and support from cell development team and Mika Räsänen are gratefully acknowledged.
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