all grown up: still the bulwark of our hand-held electronic toys, lithium-ion batteries are getting big enough to take centre stage in renewable power grids.

Like an invasive virus, in just a few decades, millions of portable phones have occupied every corner of our planet.
However, without the safe, reliable and durable power supply of these devices, this significant expansion is not feasible.
In fact, the spread of mobile electronics would not be so successful and complete without the functionality offered by Lithiumion battery.
Although in Persian artifacts that may be 2,000 years old, we found the first signs of trying to pack electricity, it was not until the 20th century that batteries became a safe thing, A convenient way to limit charges in a truly portable way.
Lithium did not become the preferred material for this application until 1990 seconds.
The lightest of all metals on the periodic table, the low density of this element provides an excellent ratio of electric potential to weight.
It also helps to embed so that lithium ions are embedded in porous materials with positive and negative electrodes.
The reversible nature of this process is crucial for charging the battery, and lithium appears as the most effective material, breaking down the charge between the electrodes with the smallest electrolyte.
The actual results have become too familiar: operate the device like a mobile phone until the battery is fully discharged, and then inject the external current into the battery until all the lost energy is replaced.
Depending on the specific design and usage of the system, this cycle may be repeated thousands of times in a few years, which is the prospect of no precedent in the history of battery technology.
It\'s kind of like the Holy Grail associated with perpetual motivation, and it has some of the same little-but-
The steady loss of the ability to often hinder such inventions.
\"Things are easy to go wrong,\" said izebel Davidson, a researcher at the energy, mining and environmental mix of the National Research Council.
Davidson spent most of his career exploring the shortcomings of lithium.
Ion batteries, and innovations that make this technology more widely available.
Contrary to the concerns of some commodity speculators, lithium is not the most expensive part of these batteries, nor is it particularly short.
What defines these product properties and pushes up their prices is a proprietary mixture of materials integrated with lithium to take advantage of its electro-chemical properties.
\"When designing batteries for applications, chemical changes are most significant,\" she explains . \".
\"Lithium ion batteries for an application such as mobile phones are not very different in chemistry or size.
However, lithium-ion batteries for power tools have different chemical components than lithium-ion batteries for laptops or mobile phones.
The electrode is a mixture of many components--
Active material, conductivity booster, and some sort of polymer adhesive.
\"The composition of the separator and the adhesive becomes important because they can connect other components and actually build the battery.
For example, the adhesive cannot interfere with the action of the electrolyte and cannot be affected by the surrounding voltage.
The emergence of the new separator enables smaller batteries to safely maintain higher power levels, opening the market for cordless power tools.
David Son\'s Davidson team sees electrolyte as an area where significant progress can still be made.
While most battery manufacturers use highly flammable organic carbonates for this purpose, she and her colleagues have been trying salt called ionic liquids. [
Slightly] Illustrations
\"They are mostly organic materials, but the volatility is very low, so the risk of fire is also very low.
In addition, they usually have a very good electrolytic voltage window . \"
However, for most people, they need to be liquid in the temperature range
Operating equipment, from-
From 30C to 60C, this requirement continues to constitute a significant obstacle.
She also pointed out that additives can improve the safety of the battery by reducing the combustion of the battery.
Any puncture of the lithium ion battery housing will allow interaction with the air and will produce a sharp flash.
\"Lithium embedded in the anode has a constant temperature reaction with both air and moisture,\" she said . \".
\"This reaction is the strongest for a fully charged battery.
\"As a result, manufacturers have designed strategies to minimize this response, especially for large-scale applications located near many batteries, so that a fire in one battery can cause the rest of the fires.
Flame retardant is often added to the electrolyte.
Manufacturers are also eager to minimize the environmental impact of batteries.
When using highly toxic solvent N-, use a polymer adhesive such as polyethylene difluoride
Davidson predicts the use of water --
Adhesive based on cellulose.
Most negative electrodes found in lithium
The ion battery is based on cmc cellulose.
The harm of the small batteries found in the phone does not seem terrible, although Davidson strongly recommends that even these batteries should be greatly respected.
The adventurous YouTube videographer deliberately turns on the seemingly medium-sized lithium-ion battery, and this behavior can provide enough color evidence of fire, Sparks, minor explosions and explosions
Give a warning to the most curious.
These small displays set the tone for planning the most ambitious lithium-ion battery units that are expected to be an important accessory to wind and solar power stations.
It is clear that when the air is calm and the sun goes down, these sites do not work, and the energy they produce does not necessarily need when the wind blows heavily or when the sun is bright.
If these systems are to make an effective contribution to the existing grid, they must be able to store a large amount of power until the grid is ready to receive it.
With this goal in mind, power companies with a stake in renewable energy have begun to invest in lithium battery arrays of container size.
One of the largest buildings in North America was built by Ont\'s Mississauga Sharjah. -
Earlier this year, Electrovaya, the headquarters, started twice.
An annual pilot test was conducted at a distribution station in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The device can accommodate 1. 5 megawatt-Hours of energy;
This is equivalent to 300,000 cell phone batteries, which can hold three watts per batteryhours.
Eventually, the unit will be connected directly to a 500 KW solar farm in order to provide electricity generated throughout the day from 5 p during peak demand timesm. to 9 p. m. [
Slightly] Illustrations
Larger installations are underway elsewhere. A 32-
Megawatt grade lithium
At the end of 2011, the Ion battery farm was launched in West Virginia, and China has commissioned a 36-
MW installation.
Jeff Dane, a chemist at Dalhousie University, said that the cost of such a major infrastructure can only be justified if the battery will continue to operate for a long time to come.
More than 20 years ago, he was one of the first people to start developing the technology, and he witnessed expectations for the technology grow as its capabilities grow.
Smartphones with bright and busy LED screens can now run all day with a single battery charge, although Dahn believes this is to reduce the power consumption of the latest hardware and the better storage capacity of the latest battery.
\"The energy density of the battery has increased by about 2.
\"Since 1991, the power consumption of these devices has dropped significantly by five times,\" he said, suggesting comparing old and new phones, omitting the latter\'s energy --hungry Web-
Surf app.
\"If an old 1991 phone is powered by today\'s battery, that phone can only use 2. 5 times longer.
But a phone with dial-up and call-only functions could run for more than a month with 1991 lithium. ion batteries.
\"As the battery is large enough to meet the needs of power companies, the expectations of these customers will be higher, and it is the responsibility of the battery manufacturer to ensure that the life and performance of its products are continuously improving.
\"In the end, if you want the battery to be used for ten years,-
Or thirty years. -
\"You have encountered this bottleneck in testing,\" he said . \".
\"The test time is too long.
As the battery gets better and better, the test is getting longer and longer.
You have to find some ways in a few weeks to find out if you have improved the battery that is already very good.
Dahn found a way to short.
Cutting this process by detecting very small charge losses occurring between the charging cycles.
These losses will eventually reduce the capacity of the battery in a few months or years;
A new test system can accurately predict the drop in a few weeks, rather than waiting that long to determine the drop.
A device in Halifax lab in Dahn is a high-precision charger that can perform this measurement, which is called Cullen efficiency.
The innovation is expected to complement the efforts of researchers around the world who are looking for ways to hone the design of lithium-ion batteries.
Much of the work is equivalent to experiments on new materials (including various metals) with the aim of improving the charging speed, energy density, or overall stability of the storage platform.
The application of nanotechnology is one of the latest innovations.
A team at the University of Waterloo is using carbon nanoparticles interacting with sulfur molecules to improve the efficiency of lithium ion storage.
Dahn believes that battery research is moving in many different directions, some of which may not make much progress, although he does not rule out surprising results that could lead to a major technological leap.
\"So far, there have been no home runs, but there are likely to be.