Progress in materials for lithium-ion power batteries

Battery technology is one of the key technologies for developing electric drive vehicles. In various batteries, lithiumion batteries (LIBs) become more and more important as the power sources in the electric vehicles application. Recently, LIBs have begun its commercial application and demonstrating operation in electric drive vehicles worldwide. In China, for the past 10 years, many efforts have been paid on the research of LIBs based on the lithium manganese oxide (LMO) or lithium iron phosphate (LFP) as cathode material and graphite (C) as anode material and now the industrial system of LIBs and its materials have been established basically. In the field of the cathode material (LMO, LFP, NCM), the anode material (natural graphite, artificial graphite) and the electrolyte, Chinese products are competitive in the international market. In the field of separator and electrolyte salt, the main production technologies have been mastered by some Chinese companies. In the years to come, high energy LIBs based on lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NCM) as cathode material will have predominance in power batteries in China. Developing advanced battery materials with larger energy density and more safety, improving in production consistency and reducing the cost of the materials will be the key points to promote the large-scale applications of power LIBs in the near future. From long-term point of view, Lithium sulfur battery and lithium air battery would be the next generation of battery with higher energy density.