Lithium & The Future, page-2

THE HISTORY OF LIB

To understand the future of Lithium we need to first look at the past.
The story for Li-ion batteries has only just begun. Even though it spans over 50 years since early research in terms of performance we have likely seen little of the real potential. Advances in science and analysis mean that the best is yet to come.
We should remember those power tools we all love came to us only 10 years ago. We sometimes forget this has been a fast ride.
It's a very important point to understand when looking at the potential of lithium and how it stacks up to would be competitors.
It's also important in understanding why Lithium as a mineral is a safer investment then the technology it drives.
In an ever changing world it is Lithium that is at the core of most advances.

A brief History for those interested.

Development of the LIB battery began it's early stages way back in the '50's
Sanyo produced the first commercial LIB very soon followed by Panasonic who then both developed separately.
These early batteries were successful but lacked in the number of cycles.

What we can call a second generation of LIB appeared in the '70's
Much of it was due to the work of Exon and Stanford University research.
For the first time the cycle loss was theoretically less than 0.05% allowing up to 1000 large depth cycle lives.
The real situation was that these second generation batteries performed far worse and displayed a number of safety issues.
The issues were caused by Lithium Dendrite formation during the charging process.
They effectively caused the formation of dead lithium.
This in tern caused internal short circuits and the generation of dangerous heat.

Problems with this second generation were thought to be finally addressed by using a separator film.
However, problems with safety issues and fires cause the eventual demise of Lithium Metal batteries and research stagnated
Some still believe that Lithium Metal batteries will make a come back and could seriously extend the range of electric Vehicles.

Failures of Lithium Metal batteries finally paved the way for what we now know as Lithium Ion batteries.
Once again it was Sony that came out with first commercial version nicknamed the Rocking Chair Battery (RCE) in development and released as the Li-ion battery. Substituting the Lithium Metal anode with an intercalation compound  many of the problems of LIB were solved. However it would take a further ten years of painstaking development

In the early 1990's a Japanese company ITT developed a new compound called Lithium Iron Phosphate  . A former employee introduced their research to Texas University who showed great interest. They continued development and a number of patents were lodged by Professor Goodenough. LFP batteries dramatically improved performance in all areas. Research continued as patents and new entrants emerged around the globe.

In 2005 Milwaukee introduced the first Li-ion powered drill that changed the market forever. It was an outsanding success but triggered  a patent war over LFP batteries this is not totally resolved to this day. Add to this that LFP technology, although improved, continued to suffer short comings in many areas.


Problems persist and research continues in a never ending line of research studies and patents.