Yonkers, New York 7/21/2020 alpha-En Corp, with its patented technology of electroplating lithium metal films, today announced that it has demonstrated the application of its core technology to pre-lithiate composite graphite anode laminates in the laboratory scale, which led to considerably improved performance of existing lithium ion batteries in terms of delivered capacity (10-20%).
Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) typically show significant irreversible loss of active lithium (10-20%) during the first charge cycle due to the inevitable formation of a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer as a result of electrolyte reduction over anode surface.
Since, LIBs are capacity limited by the amount of lithium incorporated in the starting expensive cathode component, the first cycle loss of active lithium considerably reduces the deliverable capacity. Pre-lithiation, by which an anode is partially pre-loaded with lithium before cell assembly to counter the first cycle irreversible loss of active lithium, is an effective way of achieving significantly increased cell capacity, which will lead to a proportional gain in energy density. For example, widespread adoption of a cost effective, safe and scalable pre-lithiation approach would expectedly take energy density of current LIBs close to 300 Wh/kg.
