An Exploration of New Energy Storage System: High Energy Density, High Safety, and Fast Charging Lithium Ion Battery

Rechargeable lithium ion battery (LIB) has dominated the energy market from portable electronics to electric vehicles, but the fast-charging remains challenging. The safety concerns of lithium deposition on graphite anode or the decreased energy density using Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ (LTO) anode are incapable to satisfy applications. Herein, the sulfurized polyacrylonitrile (SPAN) is explored for the first time as a high capacity and safer anode in LIBs, in which the high voltage cathode of LiNi_1/3Co_1/3Mn_1/3O₂ (NCM-H) is further introduced to configure a new SPAN|NCM-H battery with great fast-charging features. The LIB demonstrates a good stability with a high capacity retention of 89.7% after 100 cycles at a high voltage of 3.5 V (i.e., 4.6 V vs Li⁺/Li). Particularly, the excellent rate capability is confirmed and 78.7% of initial capacity can still be delivered at 4.0C. In addition, 97.6% of the battery capacity can be charged within 2.0C, which is much higher than 80% in current fast-charging application standards. The feature of lithiation potential (>1.0 V vs Li⁺/Li) of SPAN avoids the lithium deposition and improves the safety, while the high capacity over 640 mAh g⁻¹ promises 43.5% higher energy density than that of LTO-based battery, enabling its great competitiveness to conventional LIBs.