It has a lot of benefits to solar street lights with lithium batteries. So more and more countries and areas are planning to use solar street lights with a lithium battery.
A small solar panel, after absorbing one-day solar energy, produces enough electricity for a 30 Watt LED solar street light to last 2–3 days. Compared with traditional street lamps, solar street lights with lithium batteries can save a lot of electric energy and can reduce the consumption of electric energy when no one passes, without human control. Some years ago, solar street lights use lead-acid battery or gel battery, these batteries are heavy, the DOD is 70%, low efficiency, and easy to steal by theft. Solar street lights with lithium battery, the lithium battery is light and DOD is 100%, more efficient, and can install on the top of the pole or fix inside the lamp, it has an anti-theft function.
The reduction of advanced control technology and energy consumption, coupled with the development of solar street lights technology and lithium battery technology, has gradually replaced solar street lights with lithium batteries with traditional street lights.
A 250W traditional street lamp lights up for 10 hours a day, and need consumes about 100 KWh a year. Installing 30 Watt LED solar street light can achieve the same light efficiency, so installing solar street lights with lithium battery can save at least 80% of the electricity bill. Solar street light Philippines are widely used. The lighting conditions in this area are good, there are many islands, many places are too far away to be connected to the mains, and most of them are tourist areas. The installation of solar street lights will also help the tourism activities of these places. So the benefits of solar street lights with a lithium battery will include high efficiency, long use life, save a lot of power and anti-theft.
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▪ Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration unveiled a slew of measures in 2019 to promote the clean-energy vehicles
▪ Several plans are under way to build lithium-ion battery factories in India
Topics
Electric vehicles
MUMBAI : India’s ambition of becoming a global hub for making electric vehicles faces one major hurdle: its lack of access to lithium.
Home to some of the most polluted cities on the planet, the South Asian nation is pivoting toward new-energy vehicles to clean up its toxic air. But with meager resources of lithium, the mineral essential to make batteries for electric vehicles, it is having to scour for resources overseas.
India’s EV production will rely on imports from China of lithium chemicals used to make cathodes and battery cells, according to Jasmeet Singh Kalsi, director at Manikaran Power Ltd., which is exploring setting up India’s first lithium refinery. “China has a thriving lithium chemical, battery cathode, battery cell and EV supply chain. India has none.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration unveiled a slew of measures in 2019 to promote the clean-energy vehicles, including a $1.4 billion plan to make India a manufacturing hub for EVs and cutting taxes to spur purchases. While electric cars in India remain a small segment, with an estimated 3,000 sold in 2018 compared with the 3.4 million fossil fuel-powered cars in the same year, the nation is forecast become the fourth-largest market for EVs by 2040, when the segment will comprise nearly a third of all vehicles sales, according to BloombergNEF.
Import Reliance
Several plans are under way to build lithium-ion battery factories in India. Meanwhile, China — the largest electric vehicle market in the world — is dominant in the battery supply chain. Around three-quarters of battery cell manufacturing capacity is in China, and Chinese companies have unparalleled control of required domestic and foreign battery raw materials and processing facilities, according to BNEF.
“Indian companies have been involved in trying to prospect for stakes in overseas resources, and possibly on-shoring more raw materials production capacity in India,” said Sophie Lu, head of metals and mining for BloombergNEF. “But there are very little synergies right now because further up the value chain, battery components manufacturing capacity does not seem to be planned extensively for India.”
A joint venture called Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. has been formed between three state-run companies — National Aluminium Co., Hindustan Copper Ltd. and Mineral Exploration Corp. — to acquire lithium and cobalt mines overseas. Amara Raja Batteries Ltd., the country’s second-biggest traditional battery maker by value, will build a lithium-ion assembly plant, while Suzuki Motor Corp. along with Toshiba Corp. and Denso Corp. is setting up a lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant.
Manikaran signed an agreement with Australia’s Neometals in June to jointly fund the evaluation of developing a lithium refinery in India with a capacity of 10,000 tons to 15,000 tons of the finished product. That capacity falls short of India’s projected requirement of 200,000 tons of lithium hydroxide by 2030, Kalsi said.
Electric vehicles are “slowly going to take off, not with the speed the government perceives it to be, but going ahead the market is going to get pretty huge,” he said.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
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Elon Musk promised Tesla would soon have a million-mile battery, more than double what drivers can expect today. A new paper suggests he wasn’t exaggerating.
LAST APRIL, ELON Musk promised that Tesla would soon be able to power its electric cars for more than 1 million miles over the course of their lifespan. At the time, the claim seemed a bit much. That’s more than double the mileage Tesla owners can expect to get out of their car’s current battery packs, which are already well beyond the operational range of most other EV batteries. It just didn’t seem real—except now it appears that it is.
Earlier this month, a group of battery researchers at Dalhousie University, which has an exclusive agreement with Tesla, published a paper in The Journal of the Electrochemical Society describing a lithium-ion battery that “should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1 million miles” while losing less than 10 percent of its energy capacity during its lifetime.
Led by physicist Jeff Dahn, one of the world’s foremost lithium-ion researchers, the Dalhousie group showed that its battery significantly outperforms any similar lithium-ion battery previously reported. They noted their battery could be especially useful for self-driving robotaxis and long-haul electric trucks, two products Tesla is developing.
What’s interesting, though, is that the authors don’t herald the results as a breakthrough. Rather, they present it as a benchmark for other battery researchers. And they don’t skimp on the specifics.
“Full details of these cells including electrode compositions, electrode loadings, electrolyte compositions, additives used, etc. have been provided,” Dahn and his colleagues wrote in the paper. “This has been done so that others can recreate these cells and use them as benchmarks for their own R+D efforts.”
Within the EV industry, battery chemistries are a closely guarded secret. So why would Dahn’s research group, which signed its exclusive partnership with Tesla in 2016, give away the recipe for such a seemingly singular battery? According to a former member of Dahn’s team, the likely answer is that Tesla already has at least one proprietary battery chemistry that outperforms what’s described in the benchmark paper. Indeed, shortly after the paper came out, Tesla received a patent for a lithium-ion battery that is remarkably similar to the one described in the paper. Dahn, who declined to comment for this article, is listed as one of its inventors.
The lithium-ion batteries described in the paper use lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide, or NMC, for the battery’s positive electrode (cathode) and artificial graphite for its negative electrode (anode). The electrolyte, which ferries lithium ions between the electrode terminals, consists of a lithium salt blended with other compounds.
NMC/graphite chemistries have long been known to increase the energy density and lifespan of lithium-ion batteries. (Almost all electric cars, including the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt, use NMC chemistries in their batteries, but notably not Tesla.) The blend of electrolyte and additives is what ends up being the subject of trade secrets. But even those materials, as described in the paper, were well known in the industry. In other words, says Matt Lacey, a lithium-ion battery expert at the Scania Group who was not involved in the research, “there is nothing in the secret sauce that was secret!”
Instead, Dahn’s team achieved its huge performance boosts through lots and lots of optimizing of those familiar ingredients, and by tweaking the nanostructure of the battery’s cathode. Instead of using many smaller NMC crystals as the cathode, this battery relies on larger crystals. Lin Ma, a former PhD student in Dahn’s lab who was instrumental in developing the cathode design, says this “single-crystal” nanostructure is less likely to develop cracks when a battery is charging. Cracks in the cathode material cause a decrease in the lifetime and performance of the battery.
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Reports from the Energy Storage Research Program at DOE have found that “every year roughly one-million usable lithium-ion batteries are sent for recycling”. Knowing when to replace a battery is an ongoing concern and date-stamping serves as only a partial and imperfect solution. It is important to understand and acknowledge the fact that batteries do not fail suddenly, but rather they follow a predicted decline in capacity losing performance over time. Battery life is governed by usage, not time.
A new battery is rated at a nominal capacity of 100%. As the battery ages, the reserve capacity drops and the battery eventually needs replacing when the reserve capacity falls below a certain level to be defined depending on the application of a battery-powered medical device.
Nickel-based batteries provide about three-years of service; Li-on five. Storage characteristics have also improved. However, under-usage in healthcare is more common than ever, and bio-medical technicians have discovered that many medical batteries that are recycled still have a capacity of above 90%, leading to millions of unchecked batteries being discarded every year.
The date-stamping approach to batteries has several serious flaws:
It does not detect a damaged or prematurely faded battery. Batteries that are used regularly may fade before the expiry date listed on the stamp.
Through this approach, it is also often neglected that even batteries held in storage and are not in use, lose capacity over time.
It is a costly procedure as it does not allow for full battery service life to be used, resulting in most batteries in this system being replaced after less than half of their useful life is still intact. Li-on batteries, for example, often last 2-3 times longer than the date stamp mandates, but also have higher purchase prices making premature disposal even more costly.
By replacing the arguably outdated approach to battery replacement, with a greener, more reliable approach, the future of battery management in healthcare will be increasingly optimized.
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Batteries achieve the desired operating voltage by connecting several cells in series; each cell adds its voltage potential to derive at the total terminal voltage. Some packs may consist of a combination of series and parallel connections. Laptop batteries commonly have four 3.6V Li-ion cells in series to achieve a nominal voltage 14.4V and two in parallel to boost the capacity from 2,400mAh to 4,800mAh. Such a configuration is called 4s2p, meaning four cells in series and two in parallel.
It is important to use the same battery type with equal voltage and capacity (Ah) and never to mix different makes and sizes. A weaker cell would cause an imbalance, as a battery is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain.
Single Cell Applications
The single-cell configuration is the simplest battery pack; the cell does not need matching and the protection circuit on a small Li-ion cell can be kept simple. Typical examples are mobile phones and tablets with one 3.60V Li-ion cell. Other uses of a single cell are wall clocks, which typically use a 1.5V alkaline cell, wristwatches and memory backup, most of which are very low power applications.
Series Connection
Portable equipment needing higher voltages use battery packs with two or more cells connected in series.
Figure 2: Series connection of four cells (4s).
Adding cells in a string increases the voltage; the capacity remains the same.
High voltage batteries keep the conductor size small. Cordless power tools run on 12V and 18V batteries; high-end models use 24V and 36V. Most e-bikes come with 36V Li-ion, some are 48V. The car industry wanted to increase the starter battery from 12V (14V) to 36V, better known as 42V, by placing 18 lead acid cells in series.
Some mild hybrid cars run on 48V Li-ion and use DC-DC conversion to 12V for the electrical system.
Parallel Connection
If higher currents are needed and larger cells are not available or do not fit the design constraint, one or more cells can be connected in parallel. Most battery chemistries allow parallel configurations with little side effect.
Figure 4: Parallel connection of four cells (4p).
With parallel cells, capacity in Ah and runtime increases while the voltage stays the same.
Series/parallel Connection
The series/parallel configuration shown in Figure 6 enables design flexibility and achieves the desired voltage and current ratings with a standard cell size. The total power is the product of voltage-times-current; four 3.6V (nominal) cells multiplied by 3,400mAh produce 12.24Wh. Four 18650 Energy Cells of 3,400mAh each can be connected in series and parallel as shown to get 7.2V nominal and 12.24Wh. The slim cell allows flexible pack design but a protection circuit is needed.
Figure 6: Series/ parallel connection of four cells (2s2p).
This configuration provides maximum design flexibility. Paralleling the cells helps in voltage management.
Safety devices in Series and Parallel Connection
Positive Temperature Coefficient Switches (PTC) and Charge Interrupt Devices (CID) protect the battery from overcurrent and excessive pressure. While recommended for safety in a smaller 2- or 3-cell pack with serial and parallel configuration, these protection devices are often being omitted in larger multi-cell batteries, such as those for power tool.
Simple Guidelines for Using Household Primary Batteries
Keep the battery contacts clean. A four-cell configuration has eight contacts and each contact adds resistance (cell to holder and holder to next cell).
Never mix batteries; replace all cells when weak. The overall performance is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.
Observe polarity. A reversed cell subtracts rather than adds to the cell voltage.
Remove batteries from the equipment when no longer in use to prevent leakage and corrosion. This is especially important with zinc-carbon primary cells.
Do not store loose cells in a metal box. Place individual cells in small plastic bags to prevent an electrical short. Do not carry loose cells in your pockets.
Keep batteries away from small children. In addition to being a choking hazard, the current-flow of the battery can ulcerate the stomach wall if swallowed. The battery can also rupture and cause poisoning.
Do not recharge non-rechargeable batteries; hydrogen buildup can lead to an explosion. ·Perform experimental charging only under supervision.
Simple Guidelines for Using Secondary Batteries
Observe polarity when charging a secondary cell. Reversed polarity can cause an electrical short, leading to a hazardous condition.
Remove fully charged batteries from the charger. A consumer charger may not apply the correct trickle charge when fully charged and the cell can overheat.
Charge only at room temperature.
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TOPICS:Battery TechnologyCarbon DioxideGreen TechnologyMITSustainability
By DAVID L. CHANDLER, MIT NEWS OFFICE SEPTEMBER 22, 2018
This scanning electron microscope image shows the carbon cathode of a carbon-dioxide-based battery made by MIT researchers, after the battery was discharged. It shows the buildup of carbon compounds on the surface, composed of carbonate material that could be derived from power plant emissions, compared to the original pristine surface (inset). Courtesy of the researchers
New lithium-based battery could make use of greenhouse gas before it ever gets into the atmosphere.
A new type of battery developed by researchers at MIT could be made partly from carbon dioxide captured from power plants. Rather than attempting to convert carbon dioxide to specialized chemicals using metal catalysts, which is currently highly challenging, this battery could continuously convert carbon dioxide into a solid mineral carbonate as it discharges.
While still based on early-stage research and far from commercial deployment, the new battery formulation could open up new avenues for tailoring electrochemical carbon dioxide conversion reactions, which may ultimately help reduce the emission of the greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
The battery is made from lithium metal, carbon, and an electrolyte that the researchers designed. The findings are described today in the journal Joule, in a paper by assistant professor of mechanical engineering Betar Gallant, doctoral student Aliza Khurram, and postdoc Mingfu He.
Currently, power plants equipped with carbon capture systems generally use up to 30 percent of the electricity they generate just to power the capture, release, and storage of carbon dioxide. Anything that can reduce the cost of that capture process, or that can result in an end product that has value, could significantly change the economics of such systems, the researchers say.
However, “carbon dioxide is not very reactive,” Gallant explains, so “trying to find new reaction pathways is important.” Generally, the only way to get carbon dioxide to exhibit significant activity under electrochemical conditions is with large energy inputs in the form of high voltages, which can be an expensive and inefficient process. Ideally, the gas would undergo reactions that produce something worthwhile, such as a useful chemical or a fuel. However, efforts at electrochemical conversion, usually conducted in water, remain hindered by high energy inputs and poor selectivity of the chemicals produced.
Gallant and her co-workers, whose expertise has to do with nonaqueous (not water-based) electrochemical reactions such as those that underlie lithium-based batteries, looked into whether carbon-dioxide-capture chemistry could be put to use to make carbon-dioxide-loaded electrolytes — one of the three essential parts of a battery — where the captured gas could then be used during the discharge of the battery to provide a power output.
This approach is different from releasing the carbon dioxide back to the gas phase for long-term storage, as is now used in carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS. That field generally looks at ways of capturing carbon dioxide from a power plant through a chemical absorption process and then either storing it in underground formations or chemically altering it into a fuel or a chemical feedstock.
Instead, this team developed a new approach that could potentially be used right in the power plant waste stream to make material for one of the main components of a battery.
While interest has grown recently in the development of lithium-carbon-dioxide batteries, which use the gas as a reactant during discharge, the low reactivity of carbon dioxide has typically required the use of metal catalysts. Not only are these expensive, but their function remains poorly understood, and reactions are difficult to control.
By incorporating the gas in a liquid state, however, Gallant and her co-workers found a way to achieve electrochemical carbon dioxide conversion using only a carbon electrode. The key is to preactivate the carbon dioxide by incorporating it into an amine solution.
“What we’ve shown for the first time is that this technique activates the carbon dioxide for more facile electrochemistry,” Gallant says. “These two chemistries — aqueous amines and nonaqueous battery electrolytes — are not normally used together, but we found that their combination imparts new and interesting behaviors that can increase the discharge voltage and allow for sustained conversion of carbon dioxide.”
They showed through a series of experiments that this approach does work, and can produce a lithium-carbon dioxide battery with voltage and capacity that are competitive with that of state-of-the-art lithium-gas batteries. Moreover, the amine acts as a molecular promoter that is not consumed in the reaction.
The key was developing the right electrolyte system, Khurram explains. In this initial proof-of-concept study, they decided to use a nonaqueous electrolyte because it would limit the available reaction pathways and therefore make it easier to characterize the reaction and determine its viability. The amine material they chose is currently used for CCS applications, but had not previously been applied to batteries.
This early system has not yet been optimized and will require further development, the researchers say. For one thing, the cycle life of the battery is limited to 10 charge-discharge cycles, so more research is needed to improve rechargeability and prevent degradation of the cell components. “Lithium-carbon dioxide batteries are years away” as a viable product, Gallant says, as this research covers just one of several needed advances to make them practical.
But the concept offers great potential, according to Gallant. Carbon capture is widely considered essential to meeting worldwide goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there are not yet proven, long-term ways of disposing of or using all the resulting carbon dioxide. Underground geological disposal is still the leading contender, but this approach remains somewhat unproven and may be limited in how much it can accommodate. It also requires extra energy for drilling and pumping.
The researchers are also investigating the possibility of developing a continuous-operation version of the process, which would use a steady stream of carbon dioxide under pressure with the amine material, rather than a preloaded supply the material, thus allowing it to deliver a steady power output as long as the battery is supplied with carbon dioxide. Ultimately, they hope to make this into an integrated system that will carry out both the capture of carbon dioxide from a power plant’s emissions stream, and its conversion into an electrochemical material that could then be used in batteries. “It’s one way to sequester it as a useful product,” Gallant says.
“It was interesting that Gallant and co-workers cleverly combined the prior knowledge from two different areas, metal-gas battery electrochemistry and carbon-dioxide capture chemistry, and succeeded in increasing both the energy density of the battery and the efficiency of the carbon-dioxide capture,” says Kisuk Kang, a professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, who was not associated with this research.
“Even though more precise understanding of the product formation from carbon dioxide may be needed in the future, this kind of interdisciplinary approach is very exciting and often offers unexpected results, as the authors elegantly demonstrated here,” Kang adds.
MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering provided support for the project.
Publication: Aliza Khurram, et al., “Tailoring the Discharge Reaction in Li-CO2 Batteries through Incorporation of CO2 Capture Chemistry,” Joule, 2018; doi:10.1016/j.joule.2018.09.002
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According to the Environmental Protection Agency, billions of batteries find their way into landfills every year.
These batteries contain toxic substances which can then leech into the earth and water supplies. Fortunately, this negative impact on the environment can be avoided by battery recycling.
Did you know that you can recycle lithium batteries? You can, and it’s easier than you might think. Keep reading to learn more about the only safe way to get rid of old batteries.
Why Recycle Batteries
Before we go any further, let’s take a quick look at why it’s important to recycle batteries. When you understand why you’re doing something, you’re more likely to continue doing it.
Here are some of the reasons why you should be recycling old batteries:
Conserves natural resources
Reduces the amount of waste in landfills
Prevents pollution created by the collection of raw materials
Creates new jobs in the recycling and manufacturing industries
Saves energy
Avoids polluting the environment and groundwater supplies
Many of these benefits come from the fact that metals such as aluminum, nickel, and copper can all be harvested from old batteries. These can then be used in other ways and new metals don’t have to be taken from the earth.
What to Do Before Taking in Batteries
Before you take your batteries somewhere to recycle them, there are a few things you’ll want to do.
First and foremost, you need to keep your batteries out of your regular trash and recycling bin. Lithium batteries can cause sparks, even if they’re completely dead. This is why you want to avoid putting them with other recyclables.
To prevent them from sparking, cover the terminals or ends with electrical tape. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of doing this as soon as a battery is removed so it won’t cause any problems.
The other thing you want to do before you pack up your old batteries to recycle is to call ahead. You want to make sure the place you’re taking them accepts the type of battery you have so you don’t waste a trip out there.
You also need to ask about fees. Some places will charge a fee to recycle batteries for you whereas other places do it for free. Asking in advance will help you avoid an unpleasant surprise.
Where to Recycle Batteries
Recycling lithium batteries is as easy as finding a place that will take them. Here are a few resources you can use to recycle lithium batteries:
Recycling Center
One of the best places to take your batteries to where there’s a good chance they’ll take them is a local recycling center. Not every recycling center takes every type of battery, so this is one you’ll definitely want to call before going.
A quick search online should allow you to find several recycling centers near you so you can find one that will take your old batteries.
Household Hazardous Waste Center
If you’re unfortunate enough to not have a recycling center near you that will take your lithium batteries, you should be able to find a household hazardous waste center.
This will require another online query which should lead you to the right place that will definitely take your old batteries.
Scrap Yards
To make your trip worth it, you may consider taking your old batteries to a scrap yard. Many of these locations will purchase them from you because they can remove the metals from them and make a profit.
This is particularly great for hobbyists who have several large batteries lying around that are in need of recycling.
Scrap yards don’t often take alkaline batteries, so if you also have some smaller batteries saved up from various electronics, you’ll have to visit a couple of places to get rid of all of your batteries at once.
Local Library or Community Center
Sometimes, a city or local community will have a battery drive or else a specific location where you can drop off batteries to be recycled for you. Ask at your local library or community center for more information about this.
In most cases, they primarily take smaller household batteries and other used electronics rather than larger batteries. For this reason, you’ll want to double-check that your larger vehicle batteries will be accepted.
Because of how close these places generally are to you compared to recycling centers, this can be the most convenient option.
Electronic and Hardware Stores
Here are some stores that may accept batteries for recycling:
Staples
Best Buy
Home Depot
Lowes
As you can imagine, hardware stores are more likely to accept larger batteries since they sell them for tools and smaller vehicles.
Electronic stores may only accept smaller batteries used in cell phones and other electronics, so you’ll definitely want to ask before taking them there.
It’s also important to keep in mind that not every store location offers this service. Call ahead and ask about the specific types of batteries you’re looking to recycle before showing up with them.
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Industrial applications have unique power needs and the choice of battery is important. While consumer products demand high energy density to obtain slim and elegant designs, industry focuses on durability and reliability. Industrial batteries are commonly bulkier than those used in consumer products but achieve a longer service life.
Batteries are electro-chemical devices that convert higher-level active materials into an alternate state during discharge. The speed of such transaction determines the load characteristics of a battery. Also referred to as concentration polarization, the nickel and lithium-based batteries are superior to lead-based batteries in reaction speed. This attribute reflects in good load characteristics.
Discharge loads range from a low and steady current flow of a flashlight to intermittent high current bursts in a power tool, to sharp current pulses on digital communications equipment, laptops and cameras. In this paper we evaluate how the various battery chemistries perform in a given application.
What’s the best battery for video cameras?
Nickel-cadmium batteries continue to power a large percentage of professional cameras. This battery provided reliable service and performs well at low temperature. nickel-cadmium is one of the most enduring batteries in terms of service life but has only moderate energy density and needs a periodic full discharge.
The need for longer runtimes is causing a switch to nickel-metal-hydride. This battery offers up to 50% more energy than nickel-cadmium. However, the high current spikes drawn by digital cameras have a negative affect and the nickel-metal-hydride battery suffers from short service life.
There is a trend towards lithium-ion. Among rechargeables, this chemistry has the highest energy density and is lightweight. A steep price tag and the inability to provide high currents are negatives.
The 18650 cylindrical lithium-ion cell offers the most economical power source. “18” defines the cell’s diameter in millimeters and “650” the length. No other lithium-ion cell, including prismatic or polymer types, offers a similar low cost-per-watt ratio.
Over the years, several cell versions of 18650 cells with different Ah ratings have emerged, ranging from 1.8Ah to well above 2Ah. The cells with moderate capacities offer better temperature performance, enable higher currents and provide a longer service life than the souped up versions.
The typical 18650 for industrial use is rated at 2Ah at 3.60 volts. Four cells are connected in series to obtain the roughly 15 volts needed for the cameras. Paralleling the cells increases the current handling by about 2A per cell. Three cells in parallel would provide about 6A of continuous power. Four cells in series and three in parallel is a practical limit for the 18650 system.
Lithium-ion requires a protection circuit to provide safe operations under all circumstances. Each cell in series is protected against voltage peaks and dips. In addition, the protection circuit limits each cell to a current about 2A. Even if paralleled, the current of a lithium-ion pack is not high enough to drive digital cameras requiring 10 to 15A peak current. Tests conducted at Cadex Electronics have shown that the 18650 allows short current peaks above the 2A/cell limit. This would allow the use of lithium-ion on digital cameras, provided the current bursts are limited to only a few seconds.
What’s the best battery for still cameras?
The power requirement of a professional digital camera is sporadic in nature. Much battery power is needed to take snapshots, some with a powerful flash. To view the photo, the backlit color display draws additional power. Transmitting a high-resolution image over the air depletes another portion of the energy reserve.
Most non-professional cameras use a primary lithium battery. This battery type provides the highest energy density but cannot be recharged. This is a major drawback for professional use. Rechargeable batteries are the answer and lithium-ion fits the bill but faces similar challenges to the video cameras.
What is the best battery for medical devices?
One of the most energy-hungry portable medical devices is the heart defibrillator. The battery draws in excess of 10 amperes during preparation stages. Several shocks may be needed to get the patient’s heart going again. The battery must not hamper the best possible patient care.
Most defibrillators are powered by nickel-cadmium. nickel-metal-hydride is also being used but there is concern of short service life. In a recent study, however, it was observed that a defibrillator battery cycles far less than expected. Instead of the anticipated 200 cycles after two years of seemingly heavy use, less than 60 cycles had been delivered on the battery examined. ‘Smart’ battery technology makes such information possible. With fewer cycles needed, the switch to higher energy-dense batteries becomes a practical alternative.
Sealed lead-acid batteries are often used to power defibrillators intended for standby mode. Although bulky and heavy, the Lead-acid has a low self-discharge and can be kept in prolonged ready mode without the need to recharge. Lead-acid performs well on high current spurts. During the rest periods the battery disperses the depleted acid concentrations back into the electrode plate. Lead-acid would not be suitable for a sustained high load.
The medical industry is moving towards lithium-ion. The robust and economical 18650 cells make this possible. The short but high current spurts needed for defibrillators are still a challenge. Paralleling the cells and adding current-limiting circuits that allow short spikes of high current will help overcome this hurdle.
What is the best battery for power tools?
Power tools require up to 50 amperes of current and operate in an unfriendly environment. The tool must perform at sub zero temperatures and endure in high heat. The batteries must also withstand shock and vibration.
Most power tools are equipped with nickel-cadmium batteries. nickel-metal-hydride has been tried with limited success. Longevity is a problem but new designs have improved. lithium-ion is too delicate and could not provide the high amperage. Lead-acid is too bulky and lacks persistent power delivery. The power tool has simply no suitable alternatives to the rugged and hard-working nickel-cadmium.
In an attempt to pack more energy into power tools, the battery voltage is increased. Because of heavy current and application at low temperatures, cell matching is important. Cell matching becomes more critical as the number of cell connected in series increases. A weak cell holds less capacity and is discharged more quickly than the strong ones. This imbalance causes cell reversal on the weak cell if the battery is discharged at high current below 1V/cell. An electrical short occurs in the weak cell if exposed to reverse current and the pack needs to be replaced. The higher the battery voltage, the more likely will a weak cell get damaged.
Source:Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science
An artificial boron nitride (BN) film is chemically and mechanically robust against lithium. It electronically isolates lithium aluminum titanium phosphate (LATP) from lithium, but still provides stable ionic pathways when infiltrated by polyethylene oxide (PEO), and thus enables stable cycling. Credit: Qian Cheng/Columbia Engineering
The grand challenge to improve energy storage and increase battery life, while ensuring safe operation, is becoming evermore critical as we become increasingly reliant on this energy source for everything from portable devices to electric vehicles. A Columbia Engineering team led by Yuan Yang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, announced today that they have developed a new method for safely prolonging battery life by inserting a nano-coating of boron nitride (BN) to stabilize solid electrolytes in lithium metal batteries. Their findings are outlined in a new study published by Joule.
While conventional lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries are currently widely used in daily life, they have low energy density, resulting in shorter battery life, and, because of the highly flammable liquid electrolyte inside them, they can short out and even catch fire. Energy density could be improved by using lithium metalto replace the graphite anode used in Li-ion batteries: lithium metal’s theoretical capacity for the amount of charge it can deliver is almost 10 times higher than that of graphite. But during lithium plating, dendrites often form and if they penetrate the membrane separator in the middle of the battery, they can create short-circuits, raising concerns about battery safety.
“We decided to focus on solid, ceramic electrolytes. They show great promise in improving both safety and energy density, as compared with conventional, flammable electrolytes in Li-ion batteries,” says Yang. “We are particularly interested in rechargeable solid-state lithium batteries because they are promising candidates for next-generation energy storage.”
Most solid electrolytes are ceramic, and therefore non-flammable, eliminating safety concerns. In addition, solid ceramic electrolytes have a high mechanical strength that can actually suppress lithium dendrite growth, making lithium metal a coating option for battery anodes. However, most solid electrolytes are unstable against Li—they can be easily corroded by lithium metal and cannot be used in batteries.
The left visual shows that a Lithium aluminum titanium phosphate (LATP) pellet that touches lithium metal will be immediately reduced. The severe side reaction between lithium and solid electrolyte will fail the battery in several cycles. The right shows that an artificial BN film is chemically and mechanically robust against lithium. It electronically isolates LATP from lithium, but still provides stable ionic pathways when infiltrated by polyethylene oxide (PEO), and thus enables stable cycling. Credit: Qian Cheng/Columbia Engineering
“Lithium metal is indispensable for enhancing energy density and so it’s critical that we be able to use it as the anode for solid electrolytes,” says Qian Cheng, the paper’s lead author and a postdoctoral research scientist in the department of applied physics and applied mathematics who works in Yang’s group. “To adapt these unstable solid electrolytes for real-life applications, we needed to develop a chemically and mechanically stable interface to protect these solid electrolytes against the lithium anode. It is essential that the interface not only be highly electronically insulating, but also ionically conducting in order to transport lithium ions. Plus, this interface has to be super-thin to avoid lowering the energy density of batteries.”
To address these challenges, the team worked with colleagues at Brookhaven National Lab and the City University of New York. They deposited 5~10 nm boron nitride (BN) nano-film as a protective layer to isolate the electrical contact between lithium metal and the ionic conductor (the solid electrolyte), along with a trace quantity of polymer or liquid electrolyte to infiltrate the electrode/electrolyte interface. They selected BN as a protective layer because it is chemically and mechanically stable with lithium metal, providing a high degree of electronic insulation. They designed the BN layer to have intrinsic defects, through which lithium ions can pass through, allowing it to serve as an excellent separator. In addition, BN can be readily prepared by chemical vapor deposition to form large-scale (~dm level), atomically thin scale (~nm level), and continuous films.
“While earlier studies used polymeric protection layers as thick as 200 μm, our BN protective film, at only 5~10 nm thick, is record-thin—at the limit of such protection layers—without lowering the energy density of batteries,” Cheng says. “It’s the perfect material to function as a barrier that prevents the invasion of lithium metal to solid electrolyte. Like a bullet-proof vest, we’ve developed a lithium-metal-proof ‘vest’ for unstable solid electrolytes and, with that innovation, achieved long cycling lifetime lithium metal batteries.”
The researchers are now extending their method to a broad range of unstable solid electrolytes and further optimize the interface. They expect to fabricate solid-state batteries with high performance and long-cycle lifetimes.