Solid State Lithium Metal Battery

Solid State Lithium Metal Battery: Relevance

• GS 3: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Solid State Lithium Metal Battery: Context

• Recently, Shareholders of California-based QuantumScape Corp, a battery startup backed by Volkswagen AG, have approved a multibillion-dollar pay package. It has triggered comparisons with the package that Tesla awarded Elon Musk in 2018.

Solid State Lithium Metal Battery: Key points

• QuantumScape’s solid-state battery is seen as an exceptionally bright prospect in an increasingly crowded space.
• Solid-state batteries or SSBs are the lithium-ion batteries made with solid electrolytes.
• Solid-state batteries are an emerging option for next-generation traction batteries promising low cost, high performance and high safety.

Benefit of Solid State Lithium Metal Battery

• The nascent technology has the potential to trump the current incumbent—lithium-ion batteries made with liquid electrolytes—by being stable at high temperatures, which enables safer operation and better performance.
• SSBs promised that electric vehicles and mobile phones will no longer be at risk from batteries that catch fire.
• The solid electrolyte perse doesn’t improve performance, but its stability and barrier properties allow the safe use of energy-dense anode materials such as lithium metal and silicon that help the SSBs outperform the lithium-ion batteries that are in use today.
• A solid-state battery has higher energy density than a Li-ion battery that uses liquid electrolyte solution. It doesn’t have a risk of explosion or fire, so there is no need to have components for safety, thus saving more space.
• A solid-state battery can increase energy density per unit area since only a small number of batteries are needed. For that reason, a solid-state battery is perfect to make an EV battery system of module and pack, which needs high capacity.

How solid-state lithium battery is different from liquid lithium battery?

• A traditional lithium-ion battery has an anode, a separator immersed in a liquid electrolyte, and a cathode. During discharge, lithium ions flow from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte and across the separator.
• SSB, on the other hand, do not need a separator, since the solid electrolyte acts as a physical barrier between the anode and cathode.

Challenges associated with Solid State Lithium Metal Battery

• There are various scientific challenges associated with using solid electrolytes.
• Its developers are yet to prove that they can make SSBs at commercial scale.

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