Lithium-ion rechargeable battery with carbon-based anode

Chemistry: electrical current producing apparatus – product – and – Current producing cell – elements – subcombinations and... – Electrode

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H01M 458, H01M 1040

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active

060870435

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SPECIFICATION

The present invention concerns a lithium-ion rechargeable battery with carbon-based anode. More specifically, the invention relates to the use of a known graphite intercalation compound as a starting material for a new type of high-rate carbon anode for versatile lithium-ion batteries.
The rapid increase of the portable electronic market, which includes popular electronic devices such as telephones, videotape recorders and computers, as well as the critical need to eliminate heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury from the environment, are major driving forces for the development of advanced batteries. The effective development of said advanced batteries requires the use of high-capacity electrode materials in cell designs where the high energy content is associated with reliability and low cost.
In recent years, non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries using lithium as a negative electrode active material have attracted attention in view of the high levels of energy density that they can offer, thereby resulting in powerful devices of a relatively small size and weight. This, obviously, makes lithium secondary batteries very promising for use as power sources both in the field of electronic equipment and in that of electrical vehicles. In practice, however, the safety problems brought about by the presence of lithium metal have limited both the practical energy densities obtained and the maximum battery size in commercial products. In addition, it has been found that the charge/discharge efficiency of this kind of battery is low and its cycle life is short.
More recently, lithium batteries based on lithium-ion or "rocking chair" electrochemistries have been developed. Said batteries use two different lithium insertion compounds for the active cathode and anode material, and a non-aqueous, lithium ion-conducting electrolyte. The lithium insertion compounds are compounds capable of acting as a host solid for the reversible insertion, or intercalation, of lithium guest ions. During a discharge of the battery, lithium is removed from the host anode insertion compound and is inserted into the host cathode insertion compound, and on recharge the reverse occurs. Thus, the charge-discharge process of this kind of batteries involves the cyclic transfer of lithium ions (similar to rocking) from the anode to the cathode and vice-versa. Typically a carbonaceous material (partially graphitized carbon or graphite) is employed as the anode, and a lithiated transition metal oxide (e.g., LiCoO.sub.2, LiNiO.sub.2, LiMn.sub.2 O.sub.4, generically LiM.sub.y O.sub.z) is employed as the cathode material, while the lithium ion-conducting electrolyte is, e.g., a solution of a lithium salt in one or more organic solvents.
Presently, lithium-ion batteries having energy densities two to three times greater than those of conventional rechargeable systems, such as nickel-metal hydride, nickel-cadmium and lead acid batteries, and with a life exceeding 1000 cycles, are being mass-produced by the Japanese industry and are in rapid development in the United States and in Europe. Due to this impressive achievement and considering the relevance that lithium-ion batteries have acquired in the consumer electronics market, major efforts are in progress to further optimize the existing battery design and performance and, alternatively, to identify and characterize new rocking-chair cell materials and configurations.
In view of that, carbon-based intercalation compounds have received considerable attention as potential anode materials for lithium-ion cells, and a number of different carbonaceous materials have been proposed for this use, including graphites, cokes, carbon-black, pyrolytic carbon, mesocarbons, carbon fiber, glassy carbon, etc. The goal is, generally, to increase the amount of lithium that can be reversibly stored in the material, while minimizing irreversible capacity losses, such as those associated with the formation of the so-called solid electrolyte interface (SEI).
Any form of carbon reversibly reac

REFERENCES:
Goutfer-Wurmser et al., "Superdense potassium concentration in some graphite intercalation compounds", Carbon, vol. 33, No. 11 pp. 1657-1659, Nov. 1995.
Tossici et al., "A high-rate carbon electrode . . . ", J. Electrochemical Soc. vol. 143, No. 3, p. L64, Mar. 1996.
Tossici et al., "Electrochemistry of KC8 in Lithium Containing Electrolytes . . . " J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 144, No. 1, p. 186, Jan. 1997.
Elansari et al., "Synthesis, Characterisation and Structural Analysis of GICS . . . " Carbon, vol. 35, No. 4, p. 455, Apr. 1997.

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