Lithium batteries with polymer electrodes

One of the advantages of polymer electrodes is their ease of processing. This feature is thought to be particularly important in batteries with special shapes, such as the ultra-thin or flexible types. The demand for special secondary batteries like these is expected to grow as battery applications diversify in the future. Lithium batteries with polymer electrodes are thought to be likely to be used to meet such demands. 

N. Furukawa, K. Nishio, eds.. Lithium Batteries with Polymer Electrodes, Chapman Hall, London, 1993. 

Fumkawa, N. Nishio, K., "Lithium batteries with polymer electrodes . Chapter 5 (p. 150) in Scrosati, B. (Ed.), Applications of Electroactive Polymers, Chapman Hall, New York, USA (1993). 

In battery applications, new hthium ion batteries called lithium ion polymer batteries (or more simply but misleadingly, lithium polymer batteries) work with a full matrix of ionically conducting polymer, this polymer being present inside the porous electrodes and as a separator between the electrodes. They are offered in attractive flat shapes for mobile applications (mobile phones, notebooks). 

The majority of polymer electrodes cannot be doped to very high levels. For instance, polypyrrole may reach doping levels of the order of 33%. This inherent limitation combined with the fact that the operation of the lithium/polymer battery requires an excess of electrolyte (to ensure... 

A practical use of a microelectrode The advantages of microelectrode techniques are especially pronounced for systems with limited conductivity (e.g., polymer electrolytes), which are popular candidates for state-of-the-art lithium ion batteries, normally with room-temperature conductivities K - 10-4 S/cm. (a) A researcher is evaluating a newly synthesized lithium polymer electrolyte. He uses a two-electrode cell in which an electrolyte disk of 0.1 cm X 1.0 cm is... 

Carbon powder mixed with polymeric binder (PVdF, PTFE) has been widely used as anode material for lithium ion batteries and as the electrode material for EDLC with liquid electrolyte solutions. When such composite electrodes composed of carbon powder and polymer binder were used in all-solid-state EDLC, the performance was not good enough because of poor electrical contact between the electrode s active mass and the electrolyte. By having the electrolyte inside the composite electrode, the contact between the active mass in the electrode and the electrolyte can be considerably improved and hence the capacitance can... 

This section will provide a general description of the lithium-metal battery, especially with regard to the problems arising from the use of lithium metal, and introduce the lithium-polymer batteries as a reliable solution to problems deriving from the use of the lithium-metal electrode. The lithium-ion battery will then be taken up and particular emphasis will be given to the insertion electrode materials used in both the lithium-metal and the lithium-ion batteries. 

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