Lithium metal battery
As designed these primary systems use a charged cathode, that being an electro-active material with crystallographic vacancies that are filled gradually during discharge.
[4] Lithium is the alkali metal with lowest density and with the greatest electrochemical potential and energy-to-weight ratio.
The low atomic weight and small size of its ions also speeds its diffusion, likely making it an ideal battery material.
In 1981, Japanese chemists Tokio Yamabe and Shizukuni Yata discovered a novel nano-carbonacious-PAS (polyacene)[8] and found that it was very effective for the anode in the conventional liquid electrolyte.
[11] In 2019, John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for their development of lithium-ion batteries.
These batteries hold their electrolyte in a solid polymer composite instead of in a liquid solvent, and the electrodes and separators are laminated to each other.
[25] University of California San Diego have developed an electrolyte chemistry that allows lithium batteries to run at temperatures as low as -60 °C.
Small lithium batteries are very commonly used in small, portable electronic devices, such as PDAs, watches, camcorders, digital cameras, thermometers, calculators, personal computer BIOS (firmware),[42] communication equipment and remote car locks.
In particular, lithium batteries can easily support the brief, heavy current demands of devices such as digital cameras, and they maintain a higher voltage for a longer period than alkaline cells.
[43][44][45][46][dubious – discuss] The computer industry's drive to increase battery capacity can test the limits of sensitive components such as the membrane separator, a polyethylene or polypropylene film that is only 20–25 μm thick.
Although this is useful in applications where high currents are required, a too-rapid discharge of a lithium battery – especially if cobalt is present in the cells' design – can result in overheating of the battery (that lowers the electrical resistance of any cobalt content within the cell), rupture, and even an explosion.
They were adopted by the International Postal Union; however, some countries, e.g. the UK, have decided that they will not accept lithium batteries unless they are included with the equipment they power.
The United States Transportation Security Administration announced restrictions effective January 1, 2008, on lithium batteries in checked and carry-on luggage.
[48] UK regulations for the transport of lithium batteries were amended by the National Chemical Emergency Centre in 2009.
[56][57]The primary mechanism of injury with button battery ingestions is the generation of hydroxide ions, which cause severe chemical burns, at the anode.
[61] While the only cure for an esophageal impaction is endoscopic removal, a 2018 study out of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia by Rachel R. Anfang and colleagues found that early and frequent ingestion of honey or sucralfate suspension prior to the battery's removal can reduce the injury severity to a significant degree.
Central Manchester University Hospital Trust warns that "a lot of doctors are unaware that this can cause harm".
[67] The EPA, however, states that due to limited supply and increasingly high importance, lithium batteries should always be recycled if possible.
