Every year, humanity makes the scientific and technological revolution more and more noticeable to ordinary people. With the increasing number of electrical appliances, the need for storing electrical energy with the help of rechargeable batteries also increases. And this is not surprising, because electricity is the basis of the life of a modern person.
What types of batteries are relevant right now
There are two types of mass-produced batteries, which we can safely consider modern and relevant. These include lithium-polymer (Li-Pol battery ) and lithium-ion (Li-Iol) production technologies. The main distinguishing feature of a lithium polymer battery is that the electrolyte in it is not liquid, but combined, and contains a gel-like electrolyte.
The variability of the use of such batteries can be very diverse - from a power bank for a smartphone, to smart energy storage systems for an autonomous home or a whole small power grid. Tesla recently installed rechargeable batteries for the night power supply of an entire island - Kauai. For economic reasons, Tesla uses a lithium-ion battery rather than a Li-Pol battery in its systems.
A Brief History of Lithium Batteries
Lithium, which underlies the technology, was chosen for development because of its unique chemical and physical characteristics: it has a maximum energy density, as well as its metal electrochemical potential is higher than that of other available elements of the periodic table.
The first attempts to create a lithium battery were in the 1970s. But researchers were constantly plagued by problems such as spontaneous combustion or extreme heat. For these reasons, mass production of lithium batteries has not been carried out for another twenty years. The problem was solved using liquid electrolyte, but this also created new problems. Such batteries were called lithium-ion, and had a large dead weight, which absolutely did not allow them to be embedded in thin devices for consumers.
The current stage of technology development
The next insight for engineers was the use of a solid polymer instead of an electrolyte, which, however, also could not do without difficulties - the battery worked correctly only at a temperature of about 60 ° C. The solution to the problem was the transition to a gel-like form of the polymer. This allowed us to work on the same energy indicators, but at temperatures that are much lower.
Li-Pol battery allows you to create batteries of any shape and size. Suitable for use in thin electrical engineering and has a larger capacity than Li-Ion. For devices such as li pol batteries, charging takes from a few minutes to several hours. It depends on the capacity of the battery and the power of the charger.
The disadvantages of Li-Pol batteries include a short life cycle - they are prone to “aging” due to recharge cycles, they are more expensive than lithium-ion batteries and require more complicated charge controllers in production.