Recent results on aqueous electrolyte cells

The improved safety of aqueous electrolytes makes aqueous lithium-ion batteries an attractive alternative to commercial cells utilizing flammable and expensive organic electrolytes. Two important issues relating to their use have been addressed in this work. One is the extension of the usable voltage range by the incorporation of lithium salts, and the other is the investigation of a useful negative electrode reactant, LiTi 2(PO 4) 3. The electrochemical stability of aqueous lithium salt solutions containing two lithium salts, LiNO 3 and Li 2SO 4, has been characterized using a constant current technique. In both cases, concentrated solutions had effective electrolyte stability windows substantially greater than that of pure water under standard conditions. At an electrolyte leakage current of 10 μA cm -2 between two platinum electrodes in 5 M LiNO 3 the cell voltage can reach 2.0 V, whereas with a leakage current of 50 μA cm -2 it can reach 2.3 V. LiTi 2(PO 4) 3 was synthesized using a Pechini method and cycled in pH-neutral Li 2SO 4. At a reaction potential near the lower limit of electrolyte stability, an initial discharge capacity of 118 mAh g -1 was measured at a C/5 rate, while about 90% of this discharge capacity was retained after 100 cycles. This work demonstrates that it is possible to have useful aqueous electrolyte lithium-ion batteries using the LiTi 2(PO 4) 3 anode with cell voltages of 2 V and above. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.