1.

Some Battery Terminology

Difference between Primary and secondary batteries?

Primary Battery: Non rechargeable batteries. Usually, their electrochemical reactions are irreversible,
and chemical energy can only be transformed into the form of electric energy via the outer circuit.

Secondary Battery: batteries that can be repeatedly charged and discharged. To achieve this, their
electrochemical reactions must be reversible. During the discharge process, like the primary battery, it
delivers electrical energy via the outer circuit by using its chemical energy. During the charge process,
electrical energy from an external supply is changed into chemical energy and stored in the battery.

Positive Electrode and Negative Electrode?

Positive electrode: An electrode that has a higher redox potential than the negative electrode, and electrons
enter via the outer circuit during the discharge process. During the discharge process, this can also be called
the cathode due to the occurrence of the reduction reaction. During the charge process, an oxidation reaction
takes place so that it can then be called an anode.

Negative Electrode: An electrode that has a lower redox potential than the positive electrode, and electrons
exit via the outer circuit during the discharge process. During the discharge process, this can also be called
the anode due to the occurrence of the oxidation reaction. During the charge process, a reduction reaction
takes place, so that it is called a cathode.

Note: Negative and Positive electrodes can be anode or cathode depends on charge or discharge
process that’s why we can’t say the anode or the cathode when we speak about the secondary battery
we must say negative and positive electrodes.

Open-circuit voltage & Working voltage of the battery?

Open-circuit voltage: The voltage between the positive and the negative electrodes when there is no load
on the battery.
Working voltage: This is also called the closed-circuit voltage and refers to the voltage between the
positive and the negative electrodes when there is a load on the battery.

Charging & Discharging Processes?

Charging: This refers to a process where electrons are transported from the positive electrode to the
negative electrode via the outer circuit. The positive electrode is oxidized, the negative one is reduced, and
electric energy is converted to chemical energy and stored in the battery.

Discharging: This refers to a process where electrons are released by the negative electrode and flow into
the positive electrode via the outer circuit. The negative electrode is oxidized, the positive electrode is
reduced, and chemical energy is converted to electrical energy.
Discharging Characterization?

This refers to some characteristics of a battery during a discharge process, such as discharge curve,
discharge capacity, discharge rate, discharge depth, and discharge time. These characteristics are
dependent on the mode of discharge (for example, constant current, constant load, or constant power) of
the battery.

Discharge curve: This refers to a change of voltage with time during a discharge process.

Discharge capacity: This refers to the number of electrons transferred during a discharge process for a
battery. It is usually expressed as a product of time and current, such as ampere-hour (Ah)

Discharge rate: In describing batteries, discharge current is often expressed as a C-rate in order to
normalize against battery capacity, which is often very different between batteries. A C-rate is a measure
of the rate at which a battery is discharged relative to its maximum capacity. A 1 C rate means that the
discharge current will discharge the entire battery in 1 h. A 1/5 C rate means that the discharge current will
discharge the entire battery in 5 h.

Depth of discharge (DOD): This refers to the percentage of battery capacity that has been discharged
expressed as a percentage of maximum capacity. A discharge to at least 80% DOD is referred to as a deep
discharge.

Duration time: This refers to the total time for a battery to discharge under a specific load until reaching
the terminal discharge voltage.

Terminal voltage: This is the final voltage between two electrodes of a battery reached during a charge
or discharge process. (ALSO, called Cutt off voltage).

Charge characteristics?
This refers to certain characteristics of a battery during a charge process, such as charge curve, charge
capacity, charge rate, charge depth, and charge time. And it is same as Discharge process

Capacity density: This refers to a discharge capacity per volume or mass of a battery, whose unit is usually
milliampere-hour per liter or milliampere-hour per gram.

Energy density: This refers to the nominal battery energy per unit volume or mass. Specific energy density
is a characteristic of the battery chemistry and packaging.

Power density: This is the discharge energy per volume or mass of a battery, whose unit is usually watt
per liter or watt per gram.

Specific power density It determines the battery size required to achieve a given performance target.

Coulombic efficiency: This is a ratio (expressed as a percentage) between the energy removed from a
battery during the discharge process compared with the energy used during the charging process to restore
the original capacity. (Qd / Qc = 1) refers to perfect Li-ion battery.
Utilization efficiency: This refers to the practical capacity expressed as a percentage of the theoretic
capacity.

Shelf/storage life: This refers to the possible valid time that a battery can be stored without any load.
Systems with a high shelf life are preferred.

Cycle life: This is the number of times that a rechargeable battery can be cycled (charged and discharged),
until a lower limit (defined as a failure) of the capacity is reached. This limit is often set at 80% of the
nominal capacity (nominal capacity refers to the total capacity during the discharge process of a battery at
the rate of 0.2 C).

Constant-voltage charge: This refers to a process where a constant voltage (often called constant-potential,
or potential plateau) charger is maintained at nearly the same voltage input to a battery during a charging
process, regardless of the battery’s SOC. When the voltage arrives at the specified voltage, this process
terminates.

Cut-off Voltage: The minimum allowable voltage. It is this voltage that generally defines the “empty”
state of the battery.

Some battery problems?

Internal short circuit: This refers to the phenomenon that in a battery, the negative electrode is in contact
with the positive electrode to form a through circuit. The main causes are the destruction of separators, or
admixing conductive impurities.

Liquid leakage: (In case of liquid electrolyte) this refers to electrolyte leaking from a battery. This affects
the performance of a battery.

Self-discharge: This is a phenomenon in a battery in which internal chemical side reactions reduce the
stored capacity of the battery without any connection between the electrodes. Self-discharge decreases the
shelf life of batteries and causes them to initially have less than a full charge when actually put to use.

Over-discharge: This is the phenomenon occurring when a discharge voltage is below the specified
terminal voltage while a discharge process still takes place. This usually leads to some damage or side effect
on the use life of a battery.

Over charge/overcharge: This refers to the phenomenon that a charging process is still continuing when
the charge voltage rises above the specified terminal voltage. During overcharge, chemical or
electrochemical side reactions will happen. A well-known problem is the decomposition of the electrolyte.

Internal resistance: This is the total resistance of a battery between its two electrodes, including the
resistance from current collectors, electrode active materials, separators, and electrolytes. Usually, the
smaller the internal resistance, the better the performance that will be achieved. When the internal resistance
increases, the battery efficiency decreases, and thermal stability is reduced, as more of the charging energy
is converted into heat.
2. Li ion batteries Principles

The primary components of Li-ion batteries are the Negative Electrode, Positive Electrode, electrolyte and
separator (in case of Liquid electrolyte).

Intercalation/Deintercalation process

I will explain an example according to the commercial Li-ion battery using (LiCoO2 (LCO) as a
Positive electrode (Intercalation compound allows the lithium ions to be inserted and extracted from
the structure) and graphite as a negative electrode)

During the charging process:

Lithium ions (ionic state) deintercalates from the layered structure of the positive electrode (LCO) an
electron is released, and at the same time, Co3+ is oxidized into Co4+. Li+ will intercalate into the interlayer
of graphite, one electron will be obtained from the LCO lattice at the same time to turn into atomic state
lithium.

During the discharging process:

Atomic state lithium loses one electron to become a lithium ion (ionic state) and deintercalates from the
graphene layers and intercalates into the lattice of LCO, Co4+ is reduced to Co3+, gaining one electron.

How can we choose the Positive and the Negative electrode materials for Li ion batteries?
 1- Requirements for Positive Electrode Materials:

1- In an intercalation compound LixMyXz, the metal ion (Mn+) should have a high redox potential to achieve
a high output voltage.

2- To get a high reversible capacity, a high number of lithium ions should be able to intercalate and
deintercalate reversibly in the matrix, which means the value of x should be as large as possible.

3- During the whole intercalation and deintercalation process, lithium ions should be intercalated and
deintercalated reversibly, and the matrix should show little or no change, to ensure a good cycling
performance.

4- The change in redox potential should be as small as possible with the change of x, so that the voltage of the
battery does not change significantly, to maintain relatively stable charging and discharging.

5- Should have good electronic conductivity (σe–) and lithium-ion conductivity (σLi+) to reduce the polarization
and to realize charge/discharge at a high current density.

6- Have good chemical stability and should not react with the electrolyte over the entire voltage range.

(EX: lithium cobalt oxide, lithium nickel oxide, lithium manganese oxide, vanadium oxide, and various
others, such as iron oxides)

2- Requirements for Negative Electrode Materials:

1- The redox potential should be as low as possible when lithium ions insert into a negative electrode matrix.
The closer this is to the potential of metallic lithium, the higher the output voltage of the battery will be.

2- To get a high reversible capacity, a high number of lithium ions should be able to intercalate and
deintercalate reversibly in the matrix, which means the value of x should be as large as possible.

3- During the whole intercalation and deintercalation process, lithium ions should be intercalated and
deintercalated reversibly, and the matrix should show little or no change, to ensure a good cycling
performance.

4- The change in redox potential should be as small as possible with the change of x, so that the voltage of the
battery does not change significantly, to maintain relatively stable charging and discharging.

5- Intercalation compounds should have good electronic conductivity (σe–) and lithium-ion conductivity (σ
Li+) to reduce the polarization and to realize charge/discharge at a high current density.

6- The host or matrix material should have a good surface structure so that a good solid/electrolyte interface
(SEI) film can be formed with liquid electrolyte.

7- The intercalation compound should have good chemical stability over the entire voltage range and not react
with electrolytes after the formation of the SEI.
(EX: graphitic carbon materials, amorphous carbon materials, nitrides, silicon-based materials, tin-based
materials, new alloys, nano-oxides, and other materials).
3- Requirements for Gel Polymer Electrolytes:

1- The lithium-ion transfer coefficient should be relatively constant to eliminate concentration polarization.

2- It should have negligible electronic conductivity in order to ensure effective isolation between electrodes.

3- It should have high chemical stability and electrochemical stability with respect to the electrode materials.

4- There should be good adhesion between the gel polymer electrolyte and the electrode materials.

5- All solvents should be fixed or absorbed in the polymer matrix, and there should be no free organic solvents, to
avoid liquid leakage.

6- It should be inexpensive and ensure good environmental compatibility.

Usually, ionic conductivity, the electrochemical stability window, and lithium-ion transference number are
the main parameters used to characterize the gel polymer electrolyte.