Lithium Titanate Oxide Battery Technology

Lithium Titanate (also named  lithium titanate battery oxide, lithium titanium oxide, lto, li-titanate) Battery technology utilizes new Li4Ti5O12 material instead of traditional graphite as the negative electrode of the lithium battery, that achieve innovative features in terms of extraordinary safety, longer life, fast charge, high rate discharge and wider working temperature.

Advantages of Lithium Titanate Battery Technology

1. Extended Long Battery Life

Li4Ti5O12 chemistry has a 3D spinel structure. The commonly used compound molecular formula is AM2O4, the space group is Fd3m, and the unit cell parameter a=0.836nm. This 3D spinel structure has a certain capacity for lithium ion. Generally speaking, one lithium titanate can contain three lithium ion. The intercalation and de-intercalation of lithium ions during charging and discharging has almost no effect on the structure of lithium titanate materials, thus the crystal structure of lithium titanate hardly changes, and the a value only increases from 0.836 nm to 0.837 nm. This phenomenon is called “zero strain”, and lithium titanate is also called “zero strain material”. This property is significant for the electrode material, which can avoid structural changes due to the expansion and contraction of the material during the charge and discharge process, thereby improving the performance of the electrode and reducing the significant attenuation of capacity, extending the battery life.

From the current development of lithium battery technology, lithium titanate battery is the battery with the longest life and the highest safety among lithium batteries. In terms of life cycle, ordinary lithium-ion batteries are about 1,000-2,000 cycles, while lithium titanate is 10,000-20,000 cycles. The ultra-long cycles is currently only a theoretical value, but we have measured our lithium titanate cells more than 10,000 cycles long life in our laboratory, that give our customers confidence to order our lithium titanate batteries.

Please worry free to contact us to get the cycles life testing data of our lithium titanate battery if need.

2. Extraordinary Safety

Lithium titanate battery technology is also known for its extraordinary safety. Compared with carbon-based anode materials, the high potential of lithium titanate (1.5V vs Li+/Li) means that the SEI film usually generated on the surface of the carbon anode in contact with the electrolyte is basically hard to form on the surface of lithium titanate. On the other hand, it is also difficult to generate lithium dendrites on the surface of lithium titanate in the normal voltage range. This is important because the possibility of lithium dendrites causing short circuits inside the battery is significantly avoided. Therefore, the safety of lithium ion batteries using lithium titanate as the negative electrode is relatively high among various types of lithium ion batteries.

More exciting is that we enhanced the safe of lithium titanate battery by exclusive explosion-proof battery structure, This fundamentally eliminated the danger of explosion, fire.

Battery bottom: mechanical and physical explosion-proof
If gas expansion occurs inside the battery, the gas will exhausted out from the cross-shaped explosion-proof type at the bottom.

In addition, our lithium titanate cells undergo rigorous safety testing such as short circuit, over-charge/over-discharge, crush, impact, puncture in our lab, that shows no explosion, no fire.

With excellent safety and stability, lithium titanate battery is preferred power for medical equipments, health care products, oil station monitors that have high request for safety.

3. Higher and Lower Working Temperature

The 3D spinel structure of lithium titanate battery has a unique three-dimensional lithium ion diffusion channel, so it also has wider high and low temperature features in comparison to other lithium battery. For other lithium titanate battery manufacturer, their battery can be work from -40°C to 50°C. But for us, LTO® lithium titanate battery can be work at wider extreme temperature as low as -40°C and as high as 75°C. What’s more, our designed one ultra low temp lithium titanate battery cell 18650 for extreme cold area, which can be freeze 4hours -40℃ firstly and then discharge over 70% capacity at -40℃. (These get real tested in our lab, please contact us to get low temp testing data if need)

Low-temperature discharge characteristics is of particular benefit for military products, aerospace industry, polar region scientific investigation, medical devices and other extreme cold application fields that have special command in low temperature performance.

4. Support Rapid Charge and High Rate Discharge

The chemical diffusion coefficient of lithium titanate (generally 2×10-8cm2/s) is an order of magnitude larger than that of carbon anode materials. The high diffusion coefficient give lithium titanate battery ability of faster and longer cycles of charge and discharge than other carbon anode materials. Compared with carbon-based material of 3 square meters per gram, lithium titanate have anode a surface area of ​​ca. 100 square meters per gram. That allows electrons can be faster enter and leave the anode quickly, also support high working current when request.

Disadvantages of Lithium Titanate Battery Technology

When lithium titanate (LTO) material is used as a negative electrode material in a battery, it is easy to generate gas during the charge-discharge cycle reaction with electrolyte. Therefore, ordinary lithium titanate batteries are prone to flatulence, resulting in battery bulging. Once the lithium-ion battery swells, the contact between the positive and negative electrodes will no longer be tight, which will increase the internal resistance of the battery significantly, and the cycle performance of the battery will drop sharply. But LTO BATTERY Co., Ltd. has solved the problem of easy flatulence in lithium titanate batteries by adopting high-performance Li4Ti5O12 materials and an exclusive explosion-proof design of the battery mechanism.We replace the traditional steel shell with a non-polar aluminum shell, and the gas will exhausted out from the cross-shaped explosion-proof type at the bottom if gas expansion occurs inside the battery.

On the other hand, the energy density of lithium titanate batteries is relatively low among lithium batteries, and the capacity ratio of lithium titanate will decay rapidly at high rates. In the practical application of lithium-ion power batteries, high-rate operating characteristics are one of the important factors affecting large-scale commercialization. However, lithium titanate batteries have the advantage of fast charging. With the large area coverage of charging facilities, electric vehicles equipped with lithium titanate batteries can be charged anytime and anywhere, and the energy density requirements for lithium titanate batteries will be reduced. At the same time, lithium titanate batteries have an ultra-long cycle life that is superior to carbon anode batteries, which can reduce the average cost of customers.

Moreover, for small lithium titanate batteries we manufactured used in consumer electronic devices, low energy density is not so critical, and its safety and long life are more favored by electronic engineers. More lithium titanate battery cell models please go to this page: https://lithium-titanate-battery.com/lto-cell/

Potentiality of Lithium Titanate Battery Technology

For electric vehicle energy, the reliability and durability of the battery are crucial. Due to the advantages of high safety, high stability, long life and environmental protection of lithium titanate batteries, it will definitely become the negative electrode material of the new generation of lithium ion batteries and be widely used in new energy vehicles, electric motorcycles and some high-end applications that have high requirements in high safety, flexibility, high stability and long lifespan.

Currently, most battery manufacturers focus on manufacturing large-scale power lithium titanate batteries, but we are more focused on the research and manufacturing of small lithium titanate batteries. From ultra-small lithium titanate cells for special mini devices with diameter 4mm-10mm, to standard lithium titanate cells models of 1450, 1650, 1850, 18650 for consumer electronics, and high capacity 2265, 2665, 40120 for energy storage system, LTO BATTERY Co., Ltd is committed to providing customers with high-quality lithium titanate batteries.