Fast Charging Lithium Ion Battery Utilizing Phosphide-Based Anode Material

As a class, lithium ion anodes based on metal phosphide chemistry provide safe, rapid charging as well as deep cycling while yielding a higher specific capacity than the present carbon-based negative materials. The combination of high rate capability and high energy density makes phosphides among the anode materials with the highest specific power for both discharging and charging. For these reasons, phosphides are among promising materials to replace carbon-based anodes in high power applications. This includes cost-savings by having the ability to recharge in minutes from a portable generator in the field, and also from the fact that phosphide production processes are expected to be straightforward and inexpensive compared to that of other non-carbonaceous negative materials. The latter greatly improves the viability of domestic supply. The experimental evaluation of lithium ion cells with phosphide anodes will include comparisons to control cells having well-known high rate anode compositions based on lithium titanate as well as cells with high energy anode compositions based on carbon – both provided as key benchmarks in the pursuit of minimizing the charging time while optimizing the specific charge, W/kg. These two properties serve as initial screening metrics for guiding the anode development.