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Science & Tech.
Pradeep Kumar

20/06/21 10:30 AM IST

Technology for coating carbon on lithium

In news

Researchers have developed a non-expensive way to coat carbon on lithium metal oxide electrodes for lithium-ion batteries

Details
  • The life of the lithium-ion cells prepared using these electrode materials is expected to be doubled due to protective carbon coating.
  • Lithium-ion batteries are the most commonly used power source for electric vehicles.
  • However, its penetration to the daily usage against gasoline-based vehicles require drastic improvement in the lifetime and cost as well as mileage per charge.
  • The active components of lithium-ion batteries are cathode, anode, and electrolyte. 
Electrolyte
  • The electrolyte is a lithium salt dissolved in organic solvents.  
  • The capacity of the lithium-ion battery determines the mileage of the electric vehicle.
  • Before the capacity reduces to 80%, the number of charging cycles determines the life of the battery. 
Significance
  • Carbon being inert to most chemicals and stable under the operating window is the best choice of coating material to improve the cyclic stability of the active materials.
  • Carbon coating on the active materials can double the lifetime of the lithium-ion cells.
Issue 

Coating carbon on lithium metal oxide is very challenging, because of the difficulty involved in coating carbon during the synthesis of lithium metal oxide material in a single step. 

Solution
  • To address this issue, researchers at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI) have developed a technique to coat carbon in situ on lithium transition metal oxides in single step while synthesizing the oxide itself.
  • Generally, carbon is coated on oxide materials using a second step, which is not uniform and is expensive as well.
  • In ARCI method, a carbon precursor is trapped in between the transition metal hydroxide layers to minimize the reaction with oxygen even when heat-treated in the air during solid-state synthesis. 
Source: PIB

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