LAB103 Discovery Labs: Lithium-ion Battery

Zhuoya Zhang

I. Introduction
Lithium-ion battery is one of the revolutionary inventions in the world because
it is highly effective and compact. Lithium is an unstable metallic element. It has
just one electron in its outer electron shell, and it has a strong drive to leave
lithium for another atom. When this happens, a positively charged – and more
stable – lithium ion is formed. The first functional lithium battery was created by
Stanley Whittingham. It was put into manufature but was soon suspended because
it had brought several explosion. In 1980, John Goodenough doubled the battery’s
potential, making it more stable. In 1985, Akira Yoshino eliminated pure lithium
from the battery, using completely lithium-ions, which are safer than pure lithium.
This made the battery workable in practice. (The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019,
2021) Today, Lithium-ion battery has been commonly used for portable electronic
devices and electric vehicles.
Comparing to lead–acid battery, lithium ion battery has higher capacity and
higher energy density and it is more environmental-friendly. Lead acid is a
popular cost-effective battery chemistry, available in large quantities with little
worries relating to security of the supply.
Lithium-ion battery has been considered as a potential substitute for fossil
fuels. Burning fossil fuels can provide a great amout of energy but also emits a lot
greenhouse gas at the same time. Lithium-ion battery can also be able to store a
large amount of energy and more importantly, it is a clean technology.
A lithium rechargeable battery is consisted of three parts. There is an anode
and a cathode on each side, The anode is formed by a copper foil (acting uniquely
as current collector) and graphite. The cathode is formed by an Aluminium foil
(acting uniquely as current collector) and a lithium based metal oxide. Both
electrodes are immersed in lithium based electrolyte and separated by a membrane
that can only allow lithium ions to permeate to avoid that both solid electrodes
establish physical contact.
Cathode is one of the most important part in the battery. As lithium ion
batteries has been used in many fields nowadays, the demand for cathode material
is increasing greatly. Positive electrode (cathode) materials within such batteries
are rich in critical metals—particularly lithium, cobalt, and nickel. The large-scale
mining of such metals, to meet increasing battery demands, poses concerns
surrounding material exhaustion. The high cost of such metal material is also a
problem.
There are generally three types of cathode materials for lithium batteries,
Li C o O2, Li Mn 2 O4 and LiFePO 4 . (Lithium-ion battery, 2021) In this experiment,
 we use Li Mn 2 O4 considering that Li Mn 2 O4 is more cheaper and has richer
resource comparing to the other two materials.

II. Objectives
In this experiment, we will explore the construction and mechanism of Li-ion
battery. It will be conducted by three steps: fabrication of the electrodes, assembly
of the battery and measure its capacity. Then we will make a comparison between
this manually made battery and commercial li-ion battery, to see what could be an
influence factor for the capacity.

III. Electrochemical Processes

Charging:
−¿→ Li¿
Anode: L i+¿+1 e ¿
+¿ −¿ ¿
Cathode: Li n Mn O2 (s) → Li n−1 Mn O2 (s )+ Li(¿the solution) + e ¿
During charging, lithium ions gain electrons converting into Lithium metal. These
are stored between layers of graphite.
To ensure electroneutrality, the cathode releases an equivalent amount of electrons
as the lithium ions gain. This is possible as the Mn of MnO2 has d orbital that
allows different oxidation estates.

Discharging:
The process reverse.
−¿¿

Anode: Li → Li +¿+1 e ¿

+¿ −¿→ Lin MnO 2(s )¿

Cathode: Li n−1 Mn O2 (s )+ Li(¿the solution) + e ¿

IV. Experiment
1. Fabrication of the electrodes
Materials:
- Powder graphite: anode material
- Lithium Manganese Oxide (LiMn2O4): cathode material
- PTFE Binder: polymer to give mechanical stability and robustness to the
electrodes. Binder materials are responsible for holding the active material
particles within the electrode of a lithium-ion battery together to maintain a
strong connection between the electrode and the contacts.
- Electrolyte solution of lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate in propylene
carbonate
 - Microfiber filter paper (glass fiber paper): a permeable membrane. This act as
a separator between anode and cathode to avoid shortcuts. It only allows ions
within the electrolyte to flow. This will be immersed in the electrolyte solution.
- Stainless steel micromesh: acting as a current collector for both electrodes. It
can provide a structure of the electrodes before they are strengthened

Current collector:
We cut two stainless steel mesh into circles to fit exactly within the battery case.

Cathode:
We first mixed 0.6g of Lithium Manganese Oxide with 0.3g of graphite to
increase the interface and conductivity, and 0.1g of PTFE binder. We then added
1-3mL of water in small increments meanwhile mixing it with a spatula, to make
sure not to add excessive water. Stop adding water after it formed a uniform
paste. Spread the electrode material onto a piece of steel mesh.

Anode:
For safety reason, we will use graphite as a conductive anode where lithium
metal will be stored instead of lithium metal. Combine 0.9 g of graphite powder
with 0.1 g of PTFE binder in a glass vial. Using the same method to make a
slurry of graphite and PTFE. Spread it on another piece of steel mesh.

Any presence of water will affect the battery performance significantly. If

water get inside the battery, it can disrupt the flow of electrons from the anode to
cathode. This may cause short-circuit, also will lead to corrosion and residue. To
eliminate the water completely, we put them in the oven for 40 minutes at 150℃
.

2. Assembly of the battery

 We assemble the battery according to the instruction above, starting from the
cell case with gasket. The spring is to ensure the battery is compact and with no
movement of its components. Before closing the cell case, add a few drops of
electrolyte over the spring to completely saturate the cell.
We use a hydraulic press to seal the gasket.

3. Measurements and Calculations

We first use the USB battery charger and USB charger to charge our
battery.We recorded the charging time and use multimeter to measure the
charging current.

Li-ion battery

USB battery charger

Multimeter (chose the range of 20mA)

After it is fully charged, we use multimeter to record the fully-charged

voltage.

We use an LIR 2032 battery LED gadget to discharge it. We determined

whether it is fully discharged by observing the LED illlumination status. The
total illumination time is recorded with a stopwatch and the discharging current
is measured by multimeter.

Finally, we recorded its fully-discharged voltage and weigh the weight.

Here are our results:

 Charge Discharge Charged Discharged Charge Discharge Weight
current current voltage voltage time time

Slim 25 to 3 1.2 mA 3.0 V 1.728 V 5 30minutes 3.123

battery mA, minutes 36 grams
average: seconds
5 mA
Thick / / / / >12 / 3.3
battery minutes grams
Note: Due to time limit, for the slim battery, we only measured one group of data.
The thick battery can be charged and save a certain amount of energy, but energy
leaked quickly after discharging. So, we judged that it failed. We will analysis the
reason in the following.

Discharge Capacity (mAh)(slim )=¿ Discharge 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑚𝐴) × Discharge 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒

(ℎ)
=1.2(mA)*0.5(h)=2.5(mAh)
Charge Capacity (mAh)(slim)=¿ Charge 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑚𝐴) × Charge 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 (ℎ)
=5(mA)*0.0833(h)=0.416(mAh)
Coulombic efficiency=discharge capacity/charge capacity≈ 60%

V. Analysis
Compare to commercial CR2032 lithium-ion battery
The capacity of a commercial CR2032 li ion battery is 235 mAh (CR2032.pdf, 2021),
which is about 100 times larger than our CR2032 battery made in lab. From our
analysis, the reasons that may cause such a large distinction include:

- Instead of using pure Lithium, We put graphite in the cathode material for safety
considerations. The ratio of a commercial Li ion battery of conductive agent and
Lithium Manganese Oxide is about 15:85, ours is 1:2, this may potentially lower
the energy density.

- Normally, during the production of li-ion battery, the cathode and anode are
heated for 10-20 hours. In the lab fabrication process, we only baked it for 40
mins. So there may still contains water in the electrode.

Failure of the thick battery

 During our thick battery experiment, our first charging time lasted 12 min. However,
once we stopped charging, its voltage dropped rapidly. We repeated the process and
the same thing happened. We found that there are small amount of water leaking out
continuously.
So, we conclude that the battery leaks energy rapidly and the reason is probably that
the electrode was not dry enough. And since it can be charged and hold energy for a
short period of time, we can tell that the water didn’t cause any shortcut.

Opitimizations
- We need to prolong the time in the oven. Based on the comparison with the
commercial battery and our failure, we find that water can affect the battery
performance significantly and the drier it is, the better capacity it has.
- We didn’t have time to recharge the battery and repeat the measurement. This may
cause some inaccuracy for our capacity. Theoretically, the capacity will increase
in the second time, as more lithium-ion are activated. We should organize our
time better.

VI. Conclusion
This experiment is very intersting to conduct. I understood the construction of
lithium-ion battery. I am very surprised to find out that we can build a lithium ion
ourselves as before I have only learned the chemical process of charging and
discharging. I need to make a few improvements such as managing my time better
and improving the accuracy.

Bibliography
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019. (2021, Oct 16). Retrieved from NobelPrize.org.:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2019/popular-information/
Lithium-ion battery. (2021, October 19). Retrieved from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
CR2032.pdf. (2021, October 21). Retrieved from Energizer cr2032:
https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/cr2032.pdf