BATTERY:
Extended range electric vehicles (EREV) with rechargeable plug-in battery packs will be sold by GM
to provide commuters with a substitute for gasoline-based transportation. However, plug powered
electric cars charged from the electric utility grid are not as environmentally friendly as possible
because their energy source is nonrenewable and would still be responsible for emissions of carbon
dioxide (a greenhouse gas) if recharged from conventional grid electricity made by burning coal and
other fossil fuels.
A lithium-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery. It’s charged and discharged by lithium ions
that move between the negative and positive electrodes. Batteries that can be recharged repeatedly
are called secondary batteries. Disposable batteries are called primary batteries (Solarkits, 2022)
Lithium-ion batteries are suitable for storing high-capacity power. This is why they are used in
various applications. These applications include electronics like smartphones and computers,
production equipment, cars, and industrial robots. Lithium-ion batteries come in a variety of shapes
and sizes, and not all of them are made equal.
Nominal voltage is the normal voltage that the battery operates at. Some batteries may have a higher
voltage when fully charged. To further increase the current capacity, you can connect batteries in
parallel. However, this process is slightly more complicated than wiring in series. This is because
you need to match the internal impedance of each battery.
Compared to the other high-quality rechargeable battery technologies (nickel-cadmium or nickelmetal-hydride), Li-ion batteries have a number of advantages. They have one of the highest energy
densities of any battery technology today (100-265 Wh/kg or 250-670 Wh/L). In addition, Li-ion
battery cells can deliver up to 3.6 Volts, 3 times higher than technologies such as Ni-Cd or Ni-MH
(Clean Energy Institute, n.d. ).
From the study of Hanjun, Yoon, & Kim (2019), using the hybrid cells, a Li-ion battery was
successfully recharged from 1.54 to 3.60 V in 1.3 h (see Figure 3f). Under a constant 10 mA
discharge current, the battery was discharged to 1.54 V after 580 s which meant that the stored
electric capacity of the battery was around 1.61 mAh. Hybrid energy generators also recharge
commercialized cell phones from 2.63 to 3.50 V in 9h.