Development of Low Cost High Capacity Lithium-Copper Battery by AIST
As use of rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries in such products as cellular phones and notebook PC is reaching commodity level, extensive research in developing high capacity batteries for use in electric vehicles is being carried out. But use of conventional lithium-ion batteries for use in automotive application faces some issues such as its resource limited materials that is being used as its positive electrode which is either cobalt or manganese as well as its high cost and complex manufacturing process which requires high-temperature sintering and control of fine structures. Furthermore, the recycling process for such batteries requires difficult step of separating active material from conductive additives, carbon, binder and the collector electrode. Based on this needs, ASIT (Advance Industrial Science and Technology ) has developed a high capacity, low cost storage battery using metals as positive and negative electrodes. In the newly developed battery, the negative electrode is made of metallic lithium which is dipped into an organic electrolyte solution and the positive electrode is made of metallic copper which is dipped into an aqueous electrolyte solution. Mixing of the two electrolyte solutions is prevented by using a solid electrolyte separator. The discharge capacity density of this new battery is 843 mAh/g which is more than five times the capacity of positive electrode in conventional Lithium-ion batteries. The new battery comes with a low manufacturing cost and an easy recycling process due to use of metallic lithium and copper plus a simple reaction concept and electrode structures. The new battery is still in a prototype stage and the power density of this battery must be improved before its use in electric vehicles that consume a large amount of power.
