Coulombic Efficiency: Research Gate

We seldom stress about buying a new phone every few years. We want the new technology. Hence with phones, lithium-ion battery aging is hardly an issue. It is, however, a major factor with an electric vehicle. Those lithium batteries can cost as much as a small fossil-fueled car pumping out pollution.

It follows that scientists are constantly on the prowl to retard lithium-ion battery aging. Although electric car batteries should last for twenty years, the design life of the vehicle is fifty.

Thus, it would be really nice if the batteries lasted as long. Researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax think the answer lies in coulombic efficiency.

Coulombic Efficiency and Lithium-Ion Battery Aging

You can read about faradaic efficiency, faradaic yield, current efficiency, and coulombic efficiency here because they are all the same thing. In headline terms, they refer to the ability of a battery to sustain itself over time. We express this as a ratio using the formula Q-Out over Q-In. Q-out is the charge that exits the battery during discharge. Q-in is the amount of charge that enters it during charging. The result is inevitably less than one due to fundamental battery inefficiencies.

The Fundamental Inefficiency of Lithium Ion Batteries

When we charge a lithium-ion battery, lithium moves across to the graphite, negative anode and lodges there. As we draw the current out, it theoretically all moves back to the cathode.

In practice, a small amount of lithium compound remains on the anode as a thin film. Every time we recharge the battery, this grows thicker. Eventually the lithium can no longer interact with the graphite.

Ongoing Research into Lithium-Ion Battery Aging

Scientists are on the hunt to retard the deterioration of lithium ion batteries. Some say this is the ‘holy grail’ of green energy. The key appears to be putting additives in the electrolyte. However nothing is perfect. Therefore a degree of lithium-ion battery aging will likely be with us forever.

Power failures do occur at times in our places of residents, businesses, and workplaces. This power failure can last for an extended period. And as we know, without electricity, all our work or pleasure will stop. Therefore, there is the need to have backup systems so that our work is protected from damage or data loss.

Also, backup systems help us minimize the financial loss caused by blackouts, low voltages, and other power supply problems.

Therefore, let us learn one excellent backup system known as an Uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

What is the UPS Backup Battery?

An Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is also known as a battery backup, is an electronic device that provides emergency power when your regular power supply fails. UPS provides instant protection from input power interruptions by giving out the stored energy in batteries, robust capacitors, and flywheels.

Instant loss of power and power surges are two leading causes of damage to your devices. Thus, UPS protects hardware components of machines such as computers, data centers, telecommunication equipment, and all other electrical equipment. Power disruption can cause damage, fatalities, severe business disruption, or data loss.

UPS comes in different sizes, ranging from those meant to protect one computer without a monitor to those large units used to power entire data centers or buildings. Cheap power strips can protect your electrical devices but do not offer protection against drops in voltage, brownouts, blackouts, and other power supply problems.

Let us take, for instance; you are dealing with a project at home on your laptop with it plugged into an appropriate surge protection strip. You are busy with your work, and then suddenly, there is a power blackout. Although all the devices go off, your work won’t be interrupted since the laptop has a battery. This offers time to save your work then shut down your computer.

But for desktop computers, it is a different case. If you worked on your project on a desktop computer during the outage, then the system goes off when power is interrupted. This leads to loss of unsaved work and also gives your computer a lot of stress. UPS now plays its role here. It offers a window of time to save your work then shut the computer down in the right way.

You can also work for the entire period of interruption using the power stored in the UPS. Even in your absence, many UPS units come with software that enables them to detect a power outage and enables the computer to shut down automatically.

Main Types Of UPS Units

There are three main types of UPS units, namely:

A standby UPS unit – This type of battery backup charges its battery and then waits for the main power to be interrupted. When there is a power outage, the Standby UPS switches to the battery backup. It can support the device for a period of between 20-100 milliseconds, which is within the acceptable tolerance threshold.

A Line-Interactive UPS unit has the same design as a standby UPS unit, but a special transformer is included. This particular transformer makes this type of UPS better in dealing with brownouts and power surges. If you are residing in an area frequently affected by brownouts, this is the device to purchase.

An online UPS unit – this is the most expensive type of UPS. It completely separates the device attached to it from the wall power. There is never a single millisecond of power interruption with this backup system when there is power loss. The device is effectively an electronic firewall between your devices and the world, scrubbing and stabilizing all the electricity your devices are exposed to.

Can UPS Work Without the Battery?

UPS works mostly on batteries. Most UPS runs on batteries, and they cannot operate on dead or missing batteries. But in case you have the one that runs without batteries, then you will get the same voltage regulation and surge as you will be working with batteries.

Without batteries, the UPS will offer minimal protection, and even only the UPS’s surge side will work. You will not get line conditioning without a well-functioning battery. It is good to always have healthy batteries in your UPS for maximum protection of your hardware devices.

How do You Pick the Right UPS Backup Battery?

Picking the right battery for your home or device is always crucial. But these are the factors to consider when purchasing a UPS battery;

Durability

When choosing your UPS batteries, you should consider the batteries that can last for an extended period. Batteries that last for a short period are costly because you will require frequent replacements of your battery.

Size

Know the size of the battery that your UPS backup system requires. Do not purchase before checking because you can end up purchasing over-sized or under-sized batteries.

Appliances To Be Protected

It is always excellent to know the number and size of the appliances you want to protect using your UPS. If you are using the UPS in your computer, only then pick the small units UPS, but if used to support the entire building or home, you will need to have UPS with higher units.

Cost

Cost always plays a crucial role in the purchase of any product. It is good to purchase batteries that will not affect your budget. But the price should not be considered so much that the quality is left out. What benefit will you get if you purchase a battery at a lower price but dies after a few days? You will get a significant loss from cheaper batteries.

Type Of UPS

There are three main types of UPS discussed above. They have different power consumption rates. Therefore, it is good to know the type of UPS’s power consumption rate that you are currently using.

Conclusion

It is said that preventing an accident before it happens is wise. Therefore, it is crucial to protect your devices before becoming a victim of damages or data loss. Install a UPS in your workplace, home, or business, and get the best results. Always ensure that your UPS has healthy and working batteries. (Article cited: large.net)

For most renewable energy systems, as like solar street light, the most important battery characteristics are the battery lifetime, the depth of discharge and the maintenance requirements of the battery.

Some solar street lights produced with Lead/VRLA/AGM batteries by default. However, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of these types of batteries is much higher than that of lithium batteries — even though lithium batteries may appear to be more expensive at first glance.

Lithium battery VS Lead-Acid

So, why we choose lithium batteries instead of Lead-acid?

Flexibility

The same lead-acid battery is heavy in weight, larger in volume and small in energy density. The lithium battery is small in size, light in weight and easy to transport. Compared with the lithium-ion energy storage system and lead-acid gel battery used in solar street lights, the weight and capacity are about one-third of lithium batteries. As a result, transportation is easier and is costs also reduced.

Durability

Lithium battery has higher energy density and longer service life. The lithium battery cycle life of more than 2500 times, the lead-acid battery cycle life of 800 times; the energy density of lithium battery is around 150Wh/kg, lead-acid battery is about 40Wh/kg; the charging time of the lithium battery can be full within 4 hours, and the lead-acid battery is generally full around 6 hours;

Accessibility

Solar street lights using lithium batteries are easy to install. When installing traditional solar street lights, a battery pit needs to be reserved, and the battery is placed in the ground box to seal it, or install the lithium battery on the bracket, using a hanging type or a built-in type.

Then, it is easy to maintain and replace. The lithium-ion solar street lights only need to remove the battery from the pole or battery panel during maintenance, while traditional solar street lights need to dig out buried batteries, which is more troublesome than lithium-ion solar street lights.

Efficiency

Lithium battery charge and discharge electrical energy efficiency is better, lithium-ion battery charge and discharge energy conversion efficiency can be greater than 97%, and lead-acid battery charge and discharge energy conversion efficiency is about 80%, the same lithium battery than lead-acid battery volume Small, the volume of a lithium-ion battery is about 2/3 of the volume of a lead-acid battery;

Why do we recommend LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries for solar street light?

Today, many electronic systems are backed up or operated by solar energy and solar battery storage. These systems, such as closed-circuit monitoring systems, remote alarms, and environmental monitoring systems, may require direct current (DC) power storage, as well as other systems such as Motorola’s vehicle, marine. In the past few decades, Lead-acid (AGM) batteries have been their product of choice for decades, and now Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4, LFP) batteries play an important role.

The systems using AGM batteries require replacement once a year to ensure reliability. Generally, the labor cost of replacing AGM batteries exceeds the cost of the product itself, especially in Australia, Europe, North America and other places. The risks and hazards of frequent battery replacement cannot be ignored.

The positive electrode of lithium-ion batteries is lithium iron phosphate material, which has great advantages in safety performance and cycle life. These are one of the most important technical indicators of power battery. Lifepo4 battery with 1C charging and discharging cycle life can be achieved 2000 times, the puncture does not explode, it is not easy to burn and explode when overcharged. Lithium iron phosphate cathode materials make large-capacity lithium-ion batteries easier to use in series.

Lithium iron phosphate as cathode material

Lifepo4 battery refers to a lithium-ion battery using lithium iron phosphate as a positive electrode material. The positive electrode materials of lithium-ion batteries mainly include lithium cobaltate, lithium manganate, lithium nickelate, ternary materials, lithium iron phosphate, and the like. Among them, lithium cobaltate is the positive electrode material used in most lithium-ion batteries. In principle, lithium iron phosphate is also an embedding and deintercalation process. This principle is identical to lithium cobaltate and lithium manganate.

 lifepo4 battery advantages

1. High charging and discharging efficiency

Lifepo4 battery is a lithium-ion secondary battery. One main purpose is for power batteries. It has great advantages over NI-MH and Ni-Cd batteries. Lifepo4 battery has high charge and discharges efficiency, and the charge and discharge efficiency can reach over 90% under the condition of discharge, while the lead-acid battery is about 80%.

2. lifepo4 battery high safety performance

The P-O bond in the lithium iron phosphate crystal is stable and difficult to decompose, and does not collapse or heat like a lithium cobaltate or form a strong oxidizing substance even at a high temperature or overcharge, and thus has good safety.

It has been reported that in the actual operation, a small part of the sample was found to have a burning phenomenon in the acupuncture or short-circuit test, but there was no explosion event. In the overcharge experiment, a high-voltage charge that was several times higher than the self-discharge voltage was used, and it was found that there was still an Explosion phenomenon. Nevertheless, its overcharge safety has been greatly improved compared to the ordinary liquid electrolyte lithium cobalt oxide battery.

3. Lifepo4 battery long cycle life

Lifepo4 battery refers to a lithium-ion battery using lithium iron phosphate as a positive electrode material.

The long-life lead-acid battery has a cycle life of about 300 times, and the highest is 500 times. The lithium iron phosphate power battery has a cycle life of more than 2000 times, and the standard charge (5-hour rate) can be used up to 2000 times.

The same quality lead-acid battery is “new half-year, old half-year, maintenance and maintenance for half a year”, up to 1~1.5 years, and the lifepo4 battery is used under the same conditions, the theoretical life will reach 7~8 years.

Considering comprehensively, the performance price ratio is theoretically more than four times that of lead-acid batteries. High-current discharge can be quickly charged and discharged with high current 2C. Under the special charger, the battery can be fully charged within 1.5 minutes of 1.5C charging, and the starting current can reach 2C, but the lead-acid battery has no such performance.

4. Good temperature performance

The peak temperature of lithium iron phosphate can reach 350 ° C -500 ° C while lithium manganate and lithium cobaltate are only around 200 ° C. Wide operating temperature range (-20C–+75C), with high-temperature resistance, lithium iron phosphate electric heating peak can reach 350 °C-500 °C, while lithium manganate and lithium cobalt oxide only at 200 °C.

5. Lifepo4 battery High capacity

It has a larger capacity than ordinary batteries (lead-acid, etc.). The monomer capacity is 5AH-1000AH.

6. No memory effect

Rechargeable batteries work under conditions that are often not fully discharged, and the capacity will quickly fall below the rated capacity. This phenomenon is called the memory effect. Memory like nickel-metal hydride and nickel-cadmium batteries, but the lifepo4 battery does not have this phenomenon, no matter what state the battery is in, it can be used with the charge, no need to discharge and recharge.

7. Lightweight of lifepo4 battery

The lifepo4 battery of the same specification capacity is 2/3 of the volume of the lead-acid battery, and the weight is 1/3 of the lead-acid battery.

8. Lifepo4 batteries are environmentally friendly

The battery is generally considered to be free of any heavy metals and rare metals (Ni-MH batteries require rare metals), non-toxic (SGS certified), non-polluting, in line with European RoHS regulations, is an absolute green battery certificate.

Therefore, the reason why lithium batteries are favored by the industry is mainly environmental considerations. Therefore, the battery has been included in the “863” national high-tech development plan during the “Tenth Five-Year Plan” period and has become national key support and encouragement development project.

With China’s accession to the WTO, the export volume of electric bicycles in China will increase rapidly, and electric bicycles entering Europe and the United States have been required to be equipped with non-polluting batteries.

The performance of the lithium-ion battery depends mainly on the positive and negative materials. Lithium iron phosphate is a lithium battery material that has only appeared in recent years. Its safety performance and cycle life are incomparable to other materials. The most important technical indicators of the battery.

Lifepo4 battery has the advantages of non-toxic, non-polluting, good safety performance, a wide range of raw materials, low prices, and long life. It is an ideal cathode material for a new generation of lithium-ion batteries.

You must be traveling so soon, and most probably, that’s why you have landed into this great piece of information. Do you know what is involved when traveling with devices containing lithium batteries? I bet not! That’s why you are on this.

Well, there are restrictions when we talk about traveling on planes. One of those restrictions involves lithium batteries. They may seem small, but the impact they can have when they cause a fire on board is unimaginable. Lithium batteries can produce dangerous heat levels, cause ignition, short circuit very easy, and cause inextinguishable fires. That’s why renowned aviation authorities, including those in the USA, have banned lithium batteries when traveling.

What Batteries are Not Allowed on Airplanes?

1. Lithium Batteries for Spare – Both lithium polymer and lithium metal are not allowed on planes both in carry on and checked baggage. Lithium batteries have hit news headlines in recent months. Suppose a single cell was to catch fire because of the dangers associated with thermal runways. There have been viral videos on YouTube involving various gadgets raging from hoverboards to a pair of earphones. These videos showed these gadgets burning into flames. Aviation authorities have banned some of these gadgets from getting into planes, and the recent ban was Samsung note 7 smart-phones from the USA after it was proven to cause fire and explosives. There are cautions if batteries have to get into the plane, and they should be kept strictly separated from other flammable materials.
2. Spillable Batteries – Also known as car batteries or wet batteries too are not allowed in planes. But you can be let in with such batteries if, for instance, you have a wheelchair or using the battery to charge a scooter. You can be allowed to have the batteries on the plane. However, you are advised to inform the plane staff so that they can lay down the necessary measures to pack the batteries for the safe flight properly.

How Can Lithium Batteries Prevent you From Flying?

It would be good to let you know the limitation that air passengers are set to observe as they go with devices using lithium batteries or when traveling with spare batteries.

Here are some guidelines:

1. Carry Fewer PEDs – PEDs are the equipment used with lithium batteries as the source of power. Such material includes electronic devices like cameras, mobile phones, laptops, e-readers, and medical devices such as portable oxygen generators. While traveling on planes, you are supposed to have less than fifteen devices with you either in carry on or checked baggage.
2. Battery Content and Ratings – Every installed battery in a PED MUST not surpass the following: for the lithium metal or lithium alloy batteries; you are not expected to carry any lithium with more than two grams.

For the lithium-ion batteries, they should indicate an hour watt rating of less than 100 Wh.

I know you wonder how about that battery of yours with no Wh rating, you have to calculate it using the formula below to determine the watts hours rating.

Volts* ampere-hours = Watts hours.

If your battery’s capacity is shown in milliamp here hours, you will need to divide the ampere-hours by 1000 before executing the math.

3. Protection From Damages – For the batteries that might be allowed in the plane and carried in checked baggage, measures should be put in place to prevent any damage and prevent any unintentional fire incidences.
4. Complete Devices Switch Off – The devices on board using lithium batteries; they must be switched off entirely and not in sleep mode or hibernation.

Traveling and shipping lithium batteries can be complicated, and failure to know the traveling and shipping procedures and mechanisms can make you not travel.

How Do You Travel With Lithium Batteries?

1. Smart Luggage – Some of the newly made suitcases, are coming with the inbuilt charging system to power up your phone. However relaxed, they may sound; it’s important to remember that many airline rules never allow them on board. These suitcases have built-in lithium batteries. It’s advisable to check your luggage to confirm it has the lithium batteries. Remove them from the luggage and carry them on board with you.
2. Lithium Spare Batteries – If you honestly need to travel with extra lithium batteries, you need to transport them in carry-on luggage with every battery separately to protect and prevent short circuits. We recommend retaining them in the original package, taping over the exposed terminals.
3. Electronic Cigarettes and Vape Pens – Although some airline companies still term vape pens as dangerous, need to confirm before with them in case rules, and procedures have changed. Otherwise, electronic cigarettes with lithium batteries are allowed on planes but only on carry-on luggage.
4. Power Banks and External Chargers – Power banks and external chargers that are met to charge other devices have inbuilt lithium-ion batteries. You are advised to transport them with the same care as you do spare lithium batteries.
5. Shipping Lithium Batteries– All shipping requirements should comply with aviation authority guidelines. For the cargo composing of lithium battery devices – laptops and phones being shipped and you as a staff you are not sure whether they are separately packed, kindly contact your business representative for further assistance.

Conclusion

Traveling with lithium battery devices can pose such a big challenge on board. They are avoided on planes following the dangers associated with them in case they cause a fire. However, there those that are entirely not allowed while others are allowed. If you have to travel with them, you either have them on the carry on or at checked luggage. Aviation authorities have gone ahead to ban them. For those that are allowed, they should be limited to keep the minimal chances of fire occurrence. Authorities are forced to do this despite planes having extinguisher systems because; a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries is so enormous such that the system has proven not to put it out. Mind your devices with lithium-ion batteries when on planes.