Ten Times Larger Storage
A large research project has kicked off to develop a next generation secondary battery which will be applied to eco-friendly electric vehicles.
The project aims to effectively increase the ability and efficacy of the current lithium-ion battery, which is expected to be used as a main technology for the commercialization of electric vehicles.
On August 9, the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) announced that a battery research team led by Lee Sang-min will carry out the project to develop a next generation lithium metal secondary battery for electric vehicles by 2023, for which a total of 24.3 billion won will be invested.
This project is mainly led by KERI, while the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), KAIST, and Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) participate as cooperative research institutes. The current commercialized lithium-ion battery uses “graphite” as an anode material. An anode material is a center piece that composes the lithium-ion battery with a cathode, separation membrane, and electrolytes, and it produces electricity by storing lithium ions during charging and releasing them.
However, the efficiency of graphite is low due to its small storage capacity and is highly import-dependent because 70% of the world’s graphite is produced in China. For this reason, the lithium metal, which has the lowest drive voltage with ten times more storage, has received attention as a replacement material for graphite. In fact, leading countries of the secondary battery development, such as Japan and US, have already started the government-led development of lithium metal-based next generation secondary battery.
The Korean research team plans to apply a state-of-the-art technology to develop a lithium metal secondary battery that has a high energy density of 430Wh per kilogram. .