An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit. Electrodes are essential parts of batteries that can consist of a variety of materials depending on the type of battery.
A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. The negative electrode of a conventional lithium-ion cell is typically graphite, a form of carbon. This negative electrode is sometimes called the anode as it acts as an anode during discharge. The positive electrode is typically a metal oxide and is sometimes called the cathode as it acts as a cathode during discharge. Positive and negative electrodes remain positive and negative in normal use whether charging or discharging and therefore are clearer terms than anode and cathode, which are reversed during charging.
John Bannister Goodenough was an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. He was a professor of Mechanical, Materials Science, and Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is widely credited with the identification and development of the lithium-ion battery, for developing the Goodenough–Kanamori rules in determining the sign of the magnetic superexchange in materials, and for seminal developments in computer random-access memory.
Michael Stanley Whittingham is a British-American chemist. He is a professor of chemistry and director of both the Institute for Materials Research and the Materials Science and Engineering program at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He also serves as director of the Northeastern Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES) of the U.S. Department of Energy at Binghamton. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 alongside Akira Yoshino and John B. Goodenough.
The lithium iron phosphate battery or LFP battery is a type of lithium-ion battery using lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material, and a graphitic carbon electrode with a metallic backing as the anode. Because of their lower cost, high safety, low toxicity, long cycle life and other factors, LFP batteries are finding a number of roles in vehicle use, utility-scale stationary applications, and backup power. LFP batteries are cobalt-free. As of September 2022, LFP type battery market share for EVs reached 31%, and of that, 68% was from Tesla and Chinese EV maker BYD production alone. Chinese manufacturers currently hold a near monopoly of LFP battery type production. With patents having started to expire in 2022 and the increased demand for cheaper EV batteries, LFP type production is expected to rise further and surpass lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC) type batteries in 2028.
Lithium iron phosphate or lithium ferro-phosphate (LFP) is an inorganic compound with the formula LiFePO
4. It is a gray, red-grey, brown or black solid that is insoluble in water. The material has attracted attention as a component of lithium iron phosphate batteries, a type of Li-ion battery. This battery chemistry is targeted for use in power tools, electric vehicles, solar energy installations and more recently large grid-scale energy storage.
Akira Yoshino is a Japanese chemist. He is a fellow of Asahi Kasei Corporation and a professor at Meijo University in Nagoya. He created the first safe, production-viable lithium-ion battery which became used widely in cellular phones and notebook computers. Yoshino was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 alongside M. Stanley Whittingham and John B. Goodenough.
Aluminium-ion batteries are a class of rechargeable battery in which aluminium ions serve as charge carriers. Aluminium can exchange three electrons per ion. This means that insertion of one Al3+ is equivalent to three Li+ ions. Thus, since the ionic radii of Al3+ (0.54 Å) and Li+ (0.76 Å) are similar, significantly higher numbers of electrons and Al3+ ions can be accepted by cathodes with little damage. Al has 50 times (23.5 megawatt-hours m-3) the energy density of Li and is even higher than coal.
A lithium ion manganese oxide battery (LMO) is a lithium-ion cell that uses manganese dioxide, MnO
2, as the cathode material. They function through the same intercalation/de-intercalation mechanism as other commercialized secondary battery technologies, such as LiCoO
2. Cathodes based on manganese-oxide components are earth-abundant, inexpensive, non-toxic, and provide better thermal stability.
Research in lithium-ion batteries has produced many proposed refinements of lithium-ion batteries. Areas of research interest have focused on improving energy density, safety, rate capability, cycle durability, flexibility, and cost.
Magnesium batteries are batteries that utilize magnesium cations as the active charge transporting agents in solution and often as the elemental anode of an electrochemical cell. Both non-rechargeable primary cell and rechargeable secondary cell chemistries have been investigated. Magnesium primary cell batteries have been commercialised and have found use as reserve and general use batteries.
The glass battery is a type of solid-state battery. It uses a glass electrolyte and lithium or sodium metal electrodes. The battery was invented by John B. Goodenough, inventor of the lithium cobalt oxide and lithium iron phosphate electrode materials used in the lithium-ion battery (Li-ion), and Maria H. Braga, an associate professor at the University of Porto and a senior research fellow at Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas.
Yang Shao-Horn is a Chinese American scholar, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and a member of Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is known for research on understanding and controlling of processes for storing electrons in chemical bonds towards zero-carbon energy and chemicals.
Paul Fenter is a senior physicist and leader for Interfacial Processes Group, in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the former director of the Center for Electrochemical Energy Science (CEES), a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center.
Khalil Amine is a materials scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, an Argonne distinguished fellow, and group leader of the Battery Technology group. His research team is focused on the development of advanced battery systems for transportation applications. In addition to his Argonne appointment, he is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, King Abdulaziz University, Hanyang University, and Peking University.
Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (abbreviated NMC, Li-NMC, LNMC, or NCM) are mixed metal oxides of lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt with the general formula LiNixMnyCo1-x-yO2. These materials are commonly used in lithium-ion batteries for mobile devices and electric vehicles, acting as the positively charged cathode.
This is a history of the lithium-ion battery.
Karim Zaghib is an Algerian-Canadian electrochemist and materials scientist known for his contributions to the field of energy storage and conversion. He is currently Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at Concordia University. As former director of research at Hydro-Québec, he helped to make it the world’s first company to use lithium iron phosphate in cathodes, and to develop natural graphite and nanotitanate anodes.
Susan Jean Babinec is an American scientist. She is Program Lead for Stationary Storage within the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) at the Argonne National Laboratory. She looks to develop a future electric grid for the United States.
Kenneth Ikechukwu Ozoemena is a Nigerian physical chemist, materials scientist, and academic. He is a research professor at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg where he Heads the South African SARChI Chair in Materials Electrochemistry and Materials Technologies (MEET), supported by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), National Research Foundation (NRF) and Wits.
