How much do you know about solid-state batteries that are more useful than lithium batteries? At the end of last year, 24M, a semi-solid-state lithium battery research and development company established in 10 years, announced that it had received $21.8 million in round D financing , funded by advanced ceramics maker Japan’s Kyocera Group and global trading firm Itochu Corporation. This company was split from A123, an American lithium iron phosphate battery company, and its founder was Dr. Jiang Yeming, a scientist from Taiwan, China. The company once said that it would build a small industrial plant in the new year, and we will see the company’s first batch of products in 2020. The main research content is to develop more reasonable-priced high-energy-density batteries for electric vehicles. From a global perspective, many countries in China, Japan, and South Korea have started to use solid-state batteries. Why are solid-state batteries so popular?
Solid-state batteries refer to batteries with solid electrodes and solid electrolytes. Currently, the main lithium batteries on the market contain liquid electrolytes. The reason why solid-state batteries are so popular is inseparable from their high energy density and good safety performance. The negative electrode of solid-state batteries is made of lithium metal, and the electrolyte is solid inorganic or polymer materials. The energy density is not comparable to that of ordinary lithium batteries, which is 20% to 30% higher than that of lithium batteries.
Safety is another big advantage of solid-state batteries. The liquid organic electrolyte that is mainly used in liquid lithium batteries is extremely explosive, but if you start to use solid-state batteries, the safety performance of the battery can be greatly improved. Li Liang, an associate professor at Tsinghua University, said that because solid-state batteries are non-flammable, and liquid battery fluid will not be generated in them, corrosion does not exist, and the safety of batteries will be higher. In line with the development trend of future batteries.
Solid-state batteries rely on their high mechanical strength to inhibit the penetration of lithium dendrites during battery recycling, making the application of lithium metal negative electrodes no longer a dream. According to the internal characteristics of solid-state batteries, it can be generally summarized as all-solid and semi-solid batteries. Although the former is not pure solid, there is a small amount of liquid electrolyte in the battery cell, and the latter is half solid electrolyte and half liquid electrolyte.
Although solid-state batteries have the characteristics of high safety, high energy density, high cycle times, and relatively light weight. However, it still has many shortcomings, such as too much interface resistance, unfavorable lithium electron transmission, difficult fast charging, and problems such as vehicle cost have not yet been resolved. At present, solid-state batteries are still under research and development. The internal capacity decay, internal resistance increase, short internal circuit, thermal runaway, etc. of solid-state batteries have greatly increased the renewal of solid-state batteries, which has greatly reduced the advantages of solid-state batteries.