Advantages of lithium-ion batteries
Compared to other types of batteries, lithium-ion batteries have the following significant advantages.
① High operating voltage. The operating voltage of lithium cobalt oxide lithium-ion batteries is 3.6V, that of lithium manganese oxide lithium-ion batteries is 3.7V, that of lithium iron phosphate lithium-ion batteries is 3.2V, while that of nickel-metal hydride and nickel-cadmium batteries is only 1.2V.
② High energy density. The theoretical energy density of lithium-ion battery cathode materials can reach over 200 Wh/kg. In practical applications, due to irreversible capacity loss, the energy density is usually lower than this value, but it can still reach 140 Wh/kg. This value is still 3 times that of nickel-cadmium batteries and 1.5 times that of nickel-metal hydride batteries.
③Long cycle life. Currently, lithium-ion batteries can cycle more than 1,000 times under deep discharge conditions; under low discharge conditions, they can cycle tens of thousands of times, and their performance is far superior to other similar batteries.
④ Low self-discharge. The monthly self-discharge rate of lithium-ion batteries is only 5% to 9% of the total capacity, which greatly alleviates the problem of energy loss caused by self-discharge when traditional secondary batteries are stored.
⑤ Memoryless effect.
⑥ High environmental friendliness. Compared to the potential environmental pollution caused by the disposal of traditional lead-acid batteries, nickel-cadmium batteries, and even nickel-metal hydride batteries, lithium-ion batteries do not contain harmful elements such as mercury, lead, and cadmium, making them truly green batteries. VI. Application Status of Lithium-ion Batteries With the rapid development of mobile electronic devices and the continuous increase in energy demand, the demand for lithium-ion batteries is also growing. The high capacity, moderate voltage, wide availability, long cycle life, low cost, good performance, and environmental friendliness of lithium-ion batteries determine that they can not only be used in mobile communication tools but may also become the power source for the rapidly developing electric vehicles. See Table 3-5 for the application categories of lithium-ion batteries.
Application categories of lithium-ion batteries
(1) Applications in Portable Electronic Devices: Currently, mobile phones, laptops, miniature cameras, and other electronic devices requiring portable power sources have become an indispensable part of people's lives. Without exception, lithium-ion batteries are the mainstream power source for these devices. Statistics show that nearly 2.1 billion mobile phones are produced globally each year, and approximately 150 million laptops are produced annually, forming a huge market for lithium-ion batteries. In this field, lithium cobalt oxide and lithium manganese oxide lithium-ion batteries dominate.
(2) Applications in the Transportation Industry With the progress of social civilization, people's environmental awareness has increased and their demands for environmental protection have risen. Environmentally friendly transportation tools have entered people's field of vision. Currently, electric light vehicles, mainly electric bicycles, are showing a booming development trend in my country. Lithium-ion batteries have begun to be used in some high-end models, and in the development of electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries have become mainstream. Domestically, more than half of the electric vehicles developed by many automobile research and production companies use lithium-ion batteries, and this trend is gradually expanding. Internationally, pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that have been announced to enter the market, such as Nissan's Leaf, Mitsubishi's i-MiEV, and GM's Volt, all use lithium-ion battery systems.
(3) Applications in Military Equipment and Aerospace: In military equipment, lithium-ion batteries are mainly used as power sources for starting and launching, power for wireless communication radios, and power sources for micro unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. In addition, lithium-ion batteries are now widely used in devices such as laser sights, night vision devices, and pilot survival radios. In the aerospace field, lithium-ion batteries have been used in geostationary orbit satellites and low-orbit communication satellites as power for launch and in-flight correction, as well as for ground operations.
(4) The structural characteristics and unique working principle of other lithium-ion batteries determine their advantages such as abundant raw materials, environmental friendliness, high specific capacity, good cycle performance, and good safety performance. They have broad application prospects in the medical industry (e.g., hearing aids, pacemakers), petrochemical industry (e.g., oilfield power load adjustment), and power industry (e.g., energy storage). In today's pursuit of green energy, they hold even greater significance.
