According to battery material classification, lithium batteries are generally divided into two categories:
Lithium metal battery: A lithium metal battery is generally a battery that uses manganese dioxide as a positive electrode material, metallic lithium or its alloy metal as a negative electrode material, and uses a non-aqueous electrolyte solution.
Lithium-ion batteries: Lithium-ion batteries generally use lithium alloy metal oxide as the positive electrode material, graphite as the negative electrode material, and a non-aqueous electrolyte battery.
Although the energy density of lithium metal batteries is high, it can theoretically reach 3860 watts/kg. However, because its properties are not stable enough and cannot be charged, it cannot be used as a power battery for repeated use. The lithium ion battery has been developed as the main power battery due to its ability to be recharged repeatedly. However, because of the combination of different elements, the composition of the cathode material has very different performances in various aspects, leading to increased disputes on the cathode material route in the industry.
Generally speaking, the most common power batteries are lithium iron phosphate batteries, lithium manganate batteries, lithium cobalt oxide batteries, and ternary lithium batteries.
The above types of batteries have advantages and disadvantages, which can be summarized as follows:
Lithium iron phosphate battery:
Advantages: long life, large charge and discharge rate, good safety, high temperature, harmless elements, low cost.
Disadvantages: low energy density, low tap density (volume density).
Ternary lithium battery:
Advantages: high energy density and high tap density.
Disadvantages: poor safety, poor high temperature resistance, poor life, poor high-power discharge, and toxic elements (the temperature of ternary lithium batteries rises sharply after high-power charge and discharge, and oxygen released after high temperature is very easy to burn).
Lithium manganate battery:
Advantages: high volume density and low cost.
Disadvantages: poor high temperature resistance, the temperature of lithium manganese oxide rises sharply after long-term use, and the battery life is seriously attenuated.
Lithium cobalt oxide battery:
It is usually used in 3C products with extremely poor safety and is not suitable for power batteries.
In theory, the battery we need should be high energy density, high volume density, good safety, high temperature and low temperature resistance, long cycle life, non-toxic and harmless, high power charging and discharging, all the advantages of one and low cost. But at present, there is no such battery, so the advantages and disadvantages of different types of batteries need to be chosen.
