Lithium Battery Chemistry - Part 2

Self-discharge in lithium-ion batteries leads to capacity loss, reduced efficiency, and reliability concerns. This work reviews its underlying mechanisms, impact on performance, and key diagnostic approaches.

Lithium-ion battery degradation affects performance and lifetime. Electrochemical sensing techniques enable early detection of aging through analysis of voltage, impedance, and capacity changes, supporting improved state-of-health monitoring and battery management.

Sepion brings a differentiated approach to replacing graphite anodes with lithium metal by combining the latest in nanoscience, polymer chemistry, and cell engineering to safely unlock a 40% increase in electric vehicle range with a gigafactory-compatible solution.

This presentation provides an overview of performance trends in commercial automotive battery technologies. By examining cells across different formats and chemistries, the session highlights how designs have evolved, which factors influence current performance levels, and where future developments may head. The talk offers a perspective on the technological directions shaping next-generation electric vehicle batteries.

Despite progress in lithium-ion batteries, all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) offer higher energy density. Sulfide-based electrolytes show promise but face moisture sensitivity and interfacial instability. Hydro-Québec develops ceramic composite ASSBs, optimising cathode interactions and lithium metal interfaces. Innovations like ultra-thin lithium anodes enable over 700 cycles. Electrochemical analysis guides improvements, bringing sulfide-based ASSBs closer to commercialisation and transforming future battery technology with safety.

Solid-state batteries (SSBs) are positioned as a technologically-superior alternative to state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, attributed to their advantages in abuse tolerance, operable temperature ranges, and simplified system integration. Despite this promise, SSBs still face barriers that hinder their practical application, such as poor interfacial electrochemical compatibility at the particle-to-particle and layer-to-layer interfaces. In this talk, leveraging the unique properties of different solid electrolyte types (oxide and sulfide), we will outline our strategies to effectively enhance the interfacial compatibility and prolong the cell cycling, tailored for diverse vehicle applications.

The lithium ion conductivity of sulfide solid electrolytes is unbeaten, and their mechanical properties allow roll-to-roll processing. Interface issues can be overcome by interlayer and coating design, and the evolution of H2S can be mitigated by chemical design. In this presentation, the current status of sulfide-based SSBs and the recent development of halide solid electrolytes will be briefly discussed, as well as the potential need for targeted design of cathode active materials for SSBs.

Transport produces around a quarter of EU greenhouse gas emissions, with most coming from road transport. Widespread adoption of electric vehicles is therefore essential. SUBLIME aims to accelerate EV uptake by tackling key consumer challenges—reducing costs and enabling longer driving ranges with fast charging.

Solid-state batteries promise to revolutionise energy storage with longer range, faster charging, and improved safety. Many players have shown promising proofs of concept, but the major challenge is scaling the technology to meet the massive global battery demand. This talk will cover solid-state lithium-metal battery benefits for electric vehicles and other applications, advanced separator production processes, unique commercialisation strategies including non-exclusive licensing models and current progress toward market deployment.

All-solid-state batteries based on LLZO electrolytes offer high safety and energy density but face challenges in forming stable composite cathodes with high-energy CAMs. We demonstrate additive-free, fully ceramic NCM/LLZO composite cathodes enabled by optimized LLZO composition and low-temperature FAST/SPS processing, achieving dense microstructures, improved interfacial stability, high active material loading, and promising areal capacities.

Recent progress and future directions in solid-state oxide-based membranes for next-generation batteries will be discussed. Special attention will be given to Li-based garnets and sodium silicate-based electrolytes for alkali metal batteries.

Solid-state batteries might enable future operation of electric vehicles. In this talk we discuss candidate polymer electrolytes for lithium metal batteries that afford reasonable cycle life and electrochemical stability. Synergistic performance improvements are demonstrated with hybrid electrolytes that allow for straightforward cell assembly. Relevant aspects of cell designs are addressed, also evaluating the consequences of externally applied pressure as often neglected criterion in view of key performance indicators of polymer-based batteries.