Lithium positive electrode

The most important rechargeable lithium batteries are those using a soHd positive electrode within which the lithium ion is capable of intercalating. These intercalation, or insertion, electrodes function by allowing the interstitial introduction of the LE ion into a host lattice (16,17). The general reaction can be represented by the equation ... 

Coin and Button Cell Commercial Systems. Initial commercialization of rechargeable lithium technology has been through the introduction of coin or button cells. The eadiest of these systems was the Li—C system commercialized by Matsushita Electric Industries (MEI) in 1985 (26,27). The negative electrode consists of a lithium alloy and the positive electrode consists of activated carbon [7440-44-0J, carbon black, and binder. The discharge curve is not flat, but rather slopes from about 3 V to 1.5 V in a manner similar to a capacitor. Use of lithium alloy circumvents problems with cycle life, dendrite formation, and safety. However, the system suffers from generally low energy density. 

These batteries incorporate a polyacenic semiconductor (PAS) for the active material of the positive electrode, lithium for that of the negative electrode and an organic solvent for the electrolyte. PAS is essentially amorphous with a rather loose structure of molecular-size order with an interlayer distance of 4.0 A, which is larger than the 3.35 A of graphite [56, 57]. 

These batteries are new systems which use a lithium-manganese composite oxide for the active material of the positive electrode a lithium-titanium oxide with a spinel... 

As mentioned above, the typical positive electrode material is LiCo02, and there are typically two types of negative electrode materials, such as coke and graphite. The characteristics of lithium-ion batteries constructed using these electrode materials are discussed below. 

The compound LiCo02 is an attractive positive electrode for lithium-ion cells because it has a stable structure which is easy to prepare with the ideal layered configuration (da ratio = 4.99). At present, LiCo02 is the preferred positive electrode... 

In this section candidate materials for the positive electrodes of lithium-ion batteries... 

The interest in ever-higher energy content has caused the development of cells with relatively high voltages to receive much attention in the lithium battery research community in recent years. This has led to the exploration of a number of positive electrode materials that operate at potentials of about 4 V, or even more, positive of the potential of elemental lithium. 

Beginning in the early 1980s [20, 21] metallic lithium was replaced by lithium insertion materials having a lower standard redox potential than the positive insertion electrode this resulted in a "Li-ion" or "rocking-chair" cell with both negative and positive electrodes capable of reversible lithium insertion (see recommended papers and review papers [7, 10, 22-28]). Various insertion materials have been proposed for the anode of rechargeable lithium batteries,... 

Further, tungsten oxysulfide films, WOyS, have shown promising behavior as positive electrodes in microbatteries, unlike WS2 that is not suitable as cathode in lithium cells. Using amorphous thin films of WO1.05S2 and WO1.35S2.2 in the cell Li/LiAsFe, 1 M ethyl-methyl sulfone (EMS)/W03,Sz, Martin-Litas et al. [80] obtained current densities up to 37 xA cm between 1.6 and 3 V. In these cathode materials, 0.6 and 0.8 lithium per formula unit, respectively, could be intercalated and de-intercalated reversibly. 

Meunier G, Dormoy R, Levasseur A (1989) New positive-electrode materials for Lithium... 

In summary, cycling of a lithium ion battery is attended by lithium ions passing through the electrolyte from the negative to the positive electrode on charge, and in the opposite direction on discharge. For this reason the term rocking-chair batteries was coined for batteries of this type. 

---