Lithium Battery Chemistry - Part 1

Just a few years ago, Europe’s battery ambitions seemed limitless. Capacity projections surged ahead of reality, in some cases projecting volumes beyond realistic European demand. Today, the picture looks different. Demand growth is recalibrating, cost pressure is intensifying, and scaling-up has proven more complex than anticipated. This talk cuts through outdated forecasts and examines what the new European reality means for strategy, investment decisions, and competitive positioning in battery chemicals.

Saft is developing new Li-ion products reflecting current market needs in mobility applications: LTO cell for heavy cycling, phosphate-based technologies LFP, LMFP for safety critical. Next generation materials will allow the development of future generations of Li-ion batteries: HV phosphates cathodes, Si rich anodes, and niobium oxide-based anodes. Beyond advanced Li-ion batteries, Saft develops in parallel solid state technologies following polymers and sulfides pathways.

Replacing carbon-based materials with silicon in negative electrodes for lithium-ion-batteries promises a boost of capacity and is therefore a major R&D topic. Nevertheless, widespread commercial automotive applications with silicon-modified anodes are still at the horizon, but not a commercial fact. Issues regarding volume variations, particle disintegration, and electrolyte consumption are hurdles still to overcome. The presentation will summarise latest efforts and prospects with regard to commercialisation of silicon-based anodes.

This presentation will highlight the performance characteristics of NVPF-HC sodium-ion cells, developed specifically to meet the demands of the high power battery market. These cells demonstrate competitive energy density, excellent power capability, and robust cycling behaviour, making them ideal for hybrid automotive applications. This comprehensive overview aims to position sodium-ion as a credible and strategic technology in the evolving landscape of automotive electrification. 

The development of electrolytes displaying good transport properties, high thermal stability, low flammability, and high safety is of crucial importance for the realisation of lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. In this work we report about a series of novel bio-derived electrolytes, based on the solvents Tetraethoxyglyoxal (TEG) and γ-valelolactone (GVL), which have been developed with the aim to match above mentioned characteristics, together with a high sustainability and a low price.

Sulfidic solid-state electrolytes enable the efficient solid-solid conversion of sulfur and suppress any polysulfide diffusion in solid-state Li-S cells. Further, high-energy Li-S cells were built and evaluated utilising a semi-solid concept. Based on those results, the talk will cover recent progress in materials, processes, and cell design for solid-state Li-S batteries.

PolyPlus Battery Company has developed a unique Li-ion/sulfur battery technology based on the combination of inexpensive aqueous polysulfide positive electrodes with graphite or silicon negative electrodes. We have demonstrated that the waste product H2S can be converted to aqueous Li2S at very low cost and this lithiated aqueous cathode can be used with conventional Li-ion anodes with the introduction of a ceramic membrane (LATP) to produce high-cycle life batteries. The energy density of Li-ion/sulfur batteries exceeds that of LFP batteries, they are non-flammable, and due to the presence of the LATP solid electrolyte, the self-discharge rate is zero.

Conventional round lithium-ion cells suffer from high temperature increase due to high internal resistance and, therefore, cannot provide the actual available performance. Hence, V4SMART develops and produces lithium-ion cells in Germany with a new mechanical cell design in combination with unique electrode and electrolyte recipes to enable new high-power applications.

Cabot’s conductive additives, including conductive carbons, carbon nanotubes, and carbon nanostructure dispersions, are critical components of lithium-ion batteries, making up a small fraction of the battery composition but playing a crucial role in functionality and performance. The ability to tailor dispersions using novel and commercial conductive additives shows clear benefits in imparting electronic conductivity at the lowest loadings enabling high performance for various cell chemistries.

LMFP-based cathode materials have been heralded as the next-generation of olivine-based cathode beyond LFP. Yet there are several key technological challenges to be solved ahead of their commercial deployment. This talk will discuss the design trade-offs needed to achieve high-capacity, high-stability LMFP cathode materials, methodologies to gain a mechanistic understanding of synthesis, and electrochemical performance in cells.