Electric Vehicle Battery/Traction Battery
- Rechargeable (secondary) batteries, and are typically lithium-ion batteries.
- designed for a high ampere-hour (or kilowatt-hour) capacity.
- The most common battery type in modern electric vehicles are lithium-ion and lithium polymer, because of their high energy density compared to their weight.
Lithium Ion Batteries
- Commonly used for portable electronics ,electric vehicles, military and aerospace applications.
3 primary functional elements of Li-ion battery are-
- Negative electrode/Anode– made of carbon- generally Graphite.
- Positive electrode/Cathode-typically a metal oxide- generally one of three materials: a layered oxide (such as lithium cobalt oxide), a polyanion (such as lithium iron phosphate) or a spinel (such as lithium manganese oxide).
- Electrolyte is typically a mixture of organic carbonates such as ethylene carbonate or diethyl carbonate containing complexes of lithium ions.
Advantages
- High energy density – potential for yet higher capacities.
- Does not need prolonged priming when new. One regular charge is all that’s needed.
- Relatively low self-discharge – self-discharge is less than half that of nickel-based batteries.
- Low Maintenance – no periodic discharge is needed; there is no memory.
- Specialty cells can provide very high current to applications such as power tools.
Limitations
- Requires protection circuit to maintain voltage and current within safe limits.
- Subject to aging, even if not in use – storage in a cool place at 40% charge reduces the aging effect.
- Transportation restrictions – shipment of larger quantities may be subject to regulatory control. This restriction does not apply to personal carry-on batteries.
- Expensive to manufacture – about 40 percent higher in cost than nickel-cadmium.
- Not fully mature – metals and chemicals are changing on a continuing basis.
Lithium Polymer Battery
- Technically lithium-ion polymer battery , is a rechargeable battery of lithium-ion technology using a polymer electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyte.
- High conductivity semisolid (gel) polymers form this electrolyte.
- These batteries provide higher specific energy than other lithium battery types and are used in applications where weight is a critical feature, like mobile devices and radio-controlled aircraft.
Advantages
- Very low profile – batteries resembling the profile of a credit card are feasible.
- Flexible form factor – manufacturers are not bound by standard cell formats. With high volume, any reasonable size can be produced economically.
- Lightweight – gelled electrolytes enable simplified packaging by eliminating the metal shell.
- Improved safety – more resistant to overcharge; less chance for electrolyte leakage.
Limitations
- Lower energy density and decreased cycle count compared to lithium-ion.
- Expensive to manufacture.
- No standard sizes. Most cells are produced for high volume consumer markets.
- Higher cost-to-energy ratio than lithium-ion.
Applications
- Radio-controlled aircraft, radio-controlled cars ,Hybrid electric vehicles, and large scale model trains,mobile devices, power banks, very thin laptop computers, portable media players, wireless controllers for video game consoles, wireless PC peripherals, electronic cigarettes, and other applications where small form factors are sought and the high energy density outweighs cost considerations.
Lithium Air Battery
- The lithium–air battery (Li–air) is a metal–air electrochemical cell or battery chemistry that uses oxidation of lithium at the anode and reduction of oxygen at the cathode to induce a current flow.
- Advantage– Higher Energy Density than Li-Ion batteries.
- Applications– Electric Vehicles, Grid Back-up.
Zinc Air Battery
- Zinc–air batteries (non-rechargeable), and zinc–air fuel cells (mechanically rechargeable) are metal–air batteries powered by oxidizing zinc with oxygen from the air.
- These batteries have high energy densities and are relatively inexpensive to produce.
- Sizes range from very small button cells for hearing aids, larger batteries used in film cameras that previously used mercury batteries, to very large batteries used for electric vehicle propulsion and grid-scale energy storage.
- Zinc–air batteries have some properties of fuel cells as well as batteries: the zinc is the fuel, the reaction rate can be controlled by varying the air flow, and oxidized zinc/electrolyte paste can be replaced with fresh paste.
- Zinc–air batteries have higher energy density and specific energy (and weight) ratio than other types of battery because atmospheric air is one of the battery reactants.
- Zinc–air cells have long shelf life if sealed to keep air out.
- Possible future applications of this battery include its deployment as an electric vehicle battery and as a utility-scale energy storage system.
Lithium Sulfur Battery
In Li-ion batteries, the lithium ions are stored in active materials acting as stable host structures during charge and discharge. In lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, there are no host structures. While discharging, the lithium anode is consumed and sulfur transformed into a variety of chemical compounds; during charging, the reverse process takes place.
Advantages
- Its theoretical energy density is extraordinarily high: four times greater than that of Li-ion. That makes it a good fit for the aviation and space industries.
Solid State Battery
- In modern Li-ion batteries, ions move from one electrode to another across the liquid electrolyte (also called ionic conductivity).
- In all-solid-state batteries, the liquid electrolyte is replaced by a solid compound which nevertheless allows lithium ions to migrate within it.
Advantages
- The first huge advantage is a marked improvement in safety at cell and battery levels: solid electrolytes are non-flammable when heated, unlike their liquid counterparts.
- Second, it permits the use of innovative, high-voltage high-capacity materials, enabling denser, lighter batteries with better shelf-life as a result of reduced self-discharge.
- Moreover, at system level, it will bring additional advantages such as simplified mechanics as well as thermal and safety management.
- As the batteries can exhibit a high power-to-weight ratio, they may be ideal for use in electric vehicles.
Sodium Sulphur Battery
While conventional sodium sulphur batteries require very high temperature (300 degree C) for operation, researchers at the Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Madras have designed a new sodium sulphur battery that can be operated at room temperature- hence achieved higher charge storage capacity (technically called the specific capacity) and nearly zero self-discharge when the battery is not being used.
About sodium sulphur battery :
- The sodium sulphur battery is a high-temperature battery.
- It operates at 300°C and utilises a solid electrolyte, making it unique among the common secondary cells.
- One electrode is molten sodium and the other molten sulphur, and it is the reaction between these two that is the basis for the cell reaction.
Note- UPSC has been asking questions related to Lithium Ion batteries recently in Prelims- check previous years papers.
