{"id":70162,"date":"2023-01-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/existe-t-il-une-alternative-a-la-batterie-lithium-ion\/"},"modified":"2024-10-31T11:25:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T10:25:10","slug":"existe-t-il-une-alternative-a-la-batterie-lithium-ion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/existe-t-il-une-alternative-a-la-batterie-lithium-ion\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There an Alternative to the Lithium-ion Battery?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is now the automotive industry\u2019s workhorse in the production of electric vehicles (EVs). It was invented in the 1970s, when the 1973 oil crisis prompted Exxon to fund battery research that led to the development of this new technology by Stanley Whittingham (for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019, along with his colleagues John B. Goodenough and Akira Yoshino). It was commercialised by Sony in 1991 for use in electronic devices.<\/h6>\n\n\n
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Battery operation <\/h2>\n

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The Li-ion battery consists of a set of cells with two electrodes, separated by a liquid electrolyte, and which are the site of electrochemical reactions.1<\/sup> The positive electrode (the cathode when the battery is charged) is made up of layers of lithium, cobalt (potentially replaced by nickel), and manganese oxides (in the case of the so-called NMC battery, which is the most widely used today), or lithium and iron phosphates, with lithium ions inserted (\u201cintercalated\u201d) in the anode in layers of graphite (in the case of the less expensive LFP battery, favoured by Tesla and Chinese manufacturers). The electrolyte is a liquid that separates the electrodes and allows the movement of electrical charges: this is a solution of lithium salts (phosphates, chlorides, and fluorides), either in ethylene or propylene carbonates, or in carboxylic esters. During discharge, the anode releases electrons into an external circuit, and positively charged lithium ions pass through the electrolyte and into the oxide layers of the cathode.<\/p>\n

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Source: <\/em>Tarascon<\/span> Jean-Marie,<\/em> \u201cWhat future for batteries<\/a>?<\/p>\n

1. Tarascon<\/span> Jean-Marie, \u201cWhat Future for Batteries?<\/a>\u201c, Pour la science, <\/em>no. 522, April 2021, p. 44; and Tarascon<\/span> Jean-Marie, \u201cMaterial Science as a Cornerstone Driving Battery Research<\/a>\u201d, Nature Materials<\/em>, vol. 21, September 2022, p. 979.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The electrical density of today\u2019s Li-ion batteries is at most 250 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh\/kg), with an electrical energy storage efficiency of 90% when charged, and a cost of \u20ac170-200 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). This has fallen by a factor of ten over the last twenty years, but rose in 2022 owing to the rising price of materials, particularly cobalt and nickel. <\/em>These batteries offer a range of 250-450 kilometres of autonomy <\/em><\/strong>to EVs, with a life span of ten years. The recharging time of the batteries, which depends on the travel time of the ions between the electrodes, has also decreased significantly. It is between eight and ten hours for conventional batteries, but Tesla, the leader in this field, has announced 80% recharge times of between fifteen and thirty minutes when using its own high-powered terminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Battery performance can be reduced by reactions at the electrolyte\/electrode interface (lithium metal deposits during charge\/discharge cycles): the formation of dendrites can cause short circuits, leading to heat generation that damages the electrode\/electrolyte interface. In addition, the intercalation of ions in the electrodes displaces atoms in their lattice, thus causing the electrodes to deform, with the effect of reducing battery performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to further improve the performance of batteries (increasing their energy density and safety, while reducing their cost and recharging time), several innovative approaches are currently being tested by manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cAll-Solid-State\u201d Battery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A key objective is to achieve the \u201call-solid-state\u201d battery: the liquid electrolyte is then replaced by a solid, which constitutes an ionic conductor. Possible materials for this conductor include: sodium salts dissolved in a solid polymer; ceramics with lithium and silicon sulphides; and mixed crystalline oxides of lithium, lanthanum, and zirconium, or possibly of gallium and aluminium. The preferred option is a lithium-polymer combination, with lithium metal oxides and anode. This type of battery is more compact, has a higher energy density, and is faster to recharge. It is also safer, as the electrolyte does not leak. According to QuantumScape, a company associated with Volkswagen, it can be charged in fifteen minutes, with an energy density 80% higher than that of a conventional battery. However, this type of battery is not yet on the market.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Possible Solutions: Organic Materials… And Heating?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One alternative is the use of organic materials in cathodes: perylene diimide molecules (with five benzene rings) that combine to form helical ribbons. Researchers at Columbia University have shown that lithium ions can be intercalated between these ribbons in a battery cathode made of this material. Its performance is said to be fifty times better than that of the conventional Li-ion battery: an energy density of 28 kWh\/kg, capable of withstanding 10,000 rapid charge\/discharge cycles! [2]<\/a><\/sup> If these electrodes could be made stable, they would open up new possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another possibility is being tested at the University of Pennsylvania and the Beijing Institute of Technology: a Li-ion battery heated to 65\u00b0C for twelve or even eleven minutes when being recharged to 75% of its full charge was found to withstand between 900 and 2,000 charge\/discharge cycles.[3]<\/a><\/sup> The temperature increase reduces the transit time of the electrical charges in the electrolyte and therefore the duration of the recharge. It remains to be shown that the life span of the battery would not be reduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future Prospects<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There is still no ideal solution for significantly improving the performance of batteries. Despite optimistic statements about the performance of the \u201call-solid-state\u201d battery, it would be prudent not to count on a miracle solution appearing soon: Jean-Marie Tarascon (CNRS [the French National Centre for Scientific Research] gold medal winner in 2022 for his work in electrochemistry) warned in March 2021<\/a> that \u201ca battery giving an electric vehicle a range of 800 km and rechargeable in ten minutes is inconceivable\u201d. But are there alternatives to the Li-ion battery? One possibility being considered is that of replacing lithium with sodium, and the graphite in the anode with silicon. Storage capacity would increase, but the instability of the interface with the electrolyte could reduce performance. Other combinations being considered are lithium-sulphur (although sulphur brings its own risks) and lithium-oxygen (oxygen in the air oxidises lithium ions), <\/a>but the favoured area for research is the sodium-ion option. This type of battery is being studied by the RS2E<\/a> network (R\u00e9seau sur le stockage \u00e9lectrochimique de l\u2019\u00e9nergie), a CNRS network created with the support of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and involving industrial stakeholders. It is currently being marketed, and although its energy density (140 Wh\/kg) is lower than that of the Li-ion battery (200-250 Wh\/kg), it can deliver more power (40 kW\/kg). It has two advantages: sodium (found in seawater) is much more abundant than lithium, and it uses neither cobalt nor nickel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mix of sources of electricity production with increased use of intermittent renewables (solar and wind) will require significant electricity storage capacities, using stationary batteries, but with less stringent requirements for energy density. A sodium-sulphur process has been tested (notably by EDF in La R\u00e9union), which has only a mediocre energy density (100 Wh\/kg), but uses sulphur and sodium in a liquid state at a temperature of 300\u00b0C. Finally, it should be noted that the large-scale use of electric batteries will bring about challenges both in the supply of critical metals and their recycling. Battery performance has improved significantly over the last twenty years, thanks to very active research in this area, and manufacturers are hoping for a major technical breakthrough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/em>This article has been translated from French by Sam Ferguson<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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  1. \n

    Wagemaker<\/span> Marnix, Huijben<\/span> Mark, and Tromp<\/span> Moniek, \u201cWhere Are those Promising Solid-state Batteries<\/a>?\u201d, Europhysics News<\/em>, vol. 52, no. 5, November 2021, p. 28. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Ball<\/span> Philip, \u201cA New Twist for Lithium Batteries\u201c, Nature Materials, <\/em>vol. 21, September 2022, p. 993; and Zexin<\/span> Jin et al., <\/em>\u201cIterative Synthesis of Contorted Macromolecular Ladders for Fast-charging and Long-life Lithium Batteries<\/a>\u201c, Journal of the American Chemical Society, <\/em>vol. 144, no. 30, July 2022, pp. 13973-13980. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Chao-Yang<\/span> Wang et al., <\/em>\u201cFast Charging of Energy-dense Lithium-ion Batteries<\/a>\u201d, Nature, <\/em>vol. 611, 17 November 2022, p. 485. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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