A Brief Review of Current Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Potential Solid State Battery Technologies

TL;DR

This paper reviews current lithium-ion battery technology and explores potential solid state battery advancements, focusing on electrolyte types, performance challenges, and commercialization prospects for future energy storage solutions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of LIBs and analyzes recent developments and challenges in solid state battery technologies across different electrolyte classes.

Findings

Solid state batteries aim to use lithium metal anodes for higher energy density.

No current SSB fully matches the performance of liquid electrolyte LIBs.

Different electrolyte classes face unique challenges in commercialization.

Abstract

Solid state battery technology has recently garnered considerable interest from companies including Toyota, BMW, Dyson, and others. The primary driver behind the commercialization of solid state batteries (SSBs) is to enable the use of lithium metal as the anode, as opposed to the currently used carbon anode, which would result in ~20% energy density improvement. However, no reported solid state battery to date meets all of the performance metrics of state of the art liquid electrolyte lithium ion batteries (LIBs) and indeed several solid state electrolyte (SSE) technologies may never reach parity with current LIBs. We begin with a review of state of the art LIBs, including their current performance characteristics, commercial trends in cost, and future possibilities. We then discuss current SSB research by focusing on three classes of solid state electrolytes: Sulfides, Polymers, and Oxides. We discuss recent and ongoing commercialization attempts in the SSB field. Finally, we conclude with our perspective and timeline for the future of commercial batteries.