POLYMER USED IN MOBILE BATTERY

Lithium-ion polymer batteries, polymer lithium ion, or more commonly lithium polymer
batteries (abbreviated Li-poly, Li-Pol, LiPo, LIP, PLI or LiP) are rechargeable batteries
(secondary cell batteries). Normally batteries are composed of several identical secondary
cells in parallel addition to increase the discharge current capability.

The word ‘Lithium Polymer’ has become synonymous with advanced battery technology. But
what is the relationship between ‘polymer’ and the classic Lithium Ion battery? In this article
we examine the basic differences between the Li-ion and Li-ion polymer battery. We look at
packaging techniques and evaluate the cost-to-energy ratio of these batteries.

The Li-polymer differs from other battery systems in the type of electrolyte used. The
original design, which dates back to the 1970s, uses a polymer electrolyte. This electrolyte
resembles a plastic-like film that does not conduct electricity but allows the exchange of ions
(electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms). The polymer electrolyte replaces the
traditional porous separator, which is soaked with electrolyte.

The dry polymer design offers simplifications with respect to fabrication, ruggedness, safety
and thin-profile profile. There is no danger of flammability because no liquid or gelled
electrolyte is used.

With a cell thickness measuring as little as one millimeter (0.039 inches), design engineers
are left to their own imagination in terms of form, shape and size. Theoretically, it is possible
to create designs which form part of a protective housing, are in the shape of a mat that can
be rolled up, or are even embedded into a carrying case or a piece of clothing. Such
innovative batteries are still a few years away, especially for the commercial market.

Unfortunately, the dry Li-polymer suffers from poor conductivity. The internal resistance is
too high and cannot deliver the current bursts needed for modern communication devices and
spinning up the hard drives of mobile computing equipment. Although heating the cell to
60°C (140°F) and higher increases the conductivity to acceptable levels. This requirement,
however, is unsuitable for portable applications.

Some dry solid Li-polymers are currently used in hot climates as standby batteries for
stationary applications. One manufacturer has added heating elements in the cells that keep
the battery in the conductive temperature range at all times. Such a battery performs well for
the application intended because high ambient temperatures do not degrade the service life of
this battery in the same way as it does with the VRLA type. Although longer lasting, the cost
of the Li-polymer battery is high. 

Engineers are continuing to develop a dry solid Li-polymer battery that performs at room
temperature. A dry solid Li-polymer version is anticipated by 2005. This battery should be
very stable; would run 1000 full cycles and would have higher energy densities than today’s
Li-ion battery.

How then is the current Li-polymer battery made conductive at ambient temperatures?  Most
of the commercial Li-polymer batteries or mobile phones are a hybrid. Some gelled
electrolyte has been added to the dry polymer. The correct term for this system is Lithium Ion
Polymer. For marketing reasons, most battery manufacturers call it simply Li-polymer. Since
the hybrid lithium polymer is the only functioning polymer battery for portable use today, we
will focus on this chemistry variation but use the correct term of lithium ion polymer (Li-ion
polymer).

With gelled electrolyte added, what then is the difference between Li-ion and Li-ion
polymer? Although the characteristics and performance of the two systems are very similar,
the Li-ion polymer is unique in that the solid electrolyte replaces the porous separator. The
gelled electrolyte is simply added to enhance ion conductivity.

Technical difficulties and delays in volume manufacturing have deferred the introduction of the Li-ion
polymer battery. In addition, the promised superiority of the Li-ion polymer has not yet been realized.
No improvements in capacity gains are achieved — in fact, the capacity is slightly less than that of the
standard Li-ion battery. For the present, there is no cost advantage in using the Li-ion polymer battery.
The major reason for switching to the Li-ion polymer is form factor. It allows wafer-thin geometries, a
style that is demanded by the highly competitive mobile phone industry. Figure 1 summarizes the
advantages and limitations of the Li-ion polymer battery.

Advantages and Limitations of Li-ion Polymer Batteries

Very low profile — batteries that resemble the profile of a

Advantages credit card are feasible.

Flexible form factor — manufacturers are not bound by

standard cell formats. With high volume, any reasonable size
can be produced economically.

Light weight – gelled rather than liquid electrolytes enable

simplified packaging, in some cases eliminating the metal shell.

Improved safety — more resistant to overcharge; less chance

for electrolyte leakage.
Lower energy density and decreased cycle count compared to
Limitations Li-ion — potential for improvements exist.

Expensive to manufacture — once mass-produced, the Li-ion

polymer has the potential for lower cost. Reduced control circuit
offsets higher manufacturing costs.

Figure 1: Advantages and limitations of Li-ion polymer batteries.

The pouch cell

The Li-ion polymer battery is almost exclusively packaged in the so-called ‘pouch cell’. This
cell design made a profound advancement in 1995 when engineers succeeded in exchanging
the hard shell with flexible, heat-sealable foils. The traditional metallic cylinder and glass-to-
metal electrical feed-through has thus been replaced with an inexpensive foil packaging,
similar to what is used in the food industry. The electrical contacts consist of conductive foil
tabs that are welded to the electrode and sealed to the pouch material. Figure 2 illustrates a
typical pouch cell.
The pouch cell concept makes the most efficient use of available space and achieves a packaging
efficiency of 90 to 95 percent, the highest among battery packs. Because of the absence of a metal
can, the pouch pack has a lower weight. No standardized pouch cells exist, but rather, each
manufacturer builds to a special application.

Figure 2: The pouch cell.

The pouch cell offers a simple, flexible
and lightweight solution to battery design.
This new concept has not yet fully
matured and the manufacturing costs are
still high.
© Cadex Electronics Inc.

At the present time, the pouch cell is more expensive to manufacture than the cylindrical
architecture and the reliability has not been fully proven. The energy density and load current
are slightly lower than that of conventional cell designs. The cycle life in everyday
applications is not well documented but is, at present, less than that of the Li-ion system with
cylindrical cell design.
A critical issue with the pouch cell is swelling, which occurs when gas is generated during
charging or discharging. Battery manufacturers insist that Li-ion or Polymer cells do not
generate gas if properly formatted, are charged at the correct current and are kept within
allotted voltage levels. When designing the protective housing for a pouch cell, some
provision for swelling must be taken into account. To alleviate the swelling issue when using
multiple cells, it is best not to stack pouch cells, but lay them flat side-by-side.
The pouch cell is highly sensitive to twisting. Point pressure must also be avoided. The
protective housing must be designed to safeguard the cell from mechanical stress.

The cost of being slim

The slimmer the battery profile, the higher the cost–to-energy ratio becomes. By far the most
economical lithium-based battery is the cylindrical 18650 cell. ‘Eighteen’ denotes the
diameter in millimeters and ‘650’ describes the length in millimeters. The new 18650 cell has
a capacity 2000mAh. The larger 26650 cell has a diameter of 26 mm and delivers 3200mAh.
The disadvantage of the cylindrical cell is bulky size and less than maximum use of space.
When stacking, air cavities are formed. Because of fixed cell sizes, the battery pack must be
designed around the available cell.
If a thinner profile than 18 mm is required, the prismatic Li-ion cell is the best choice. The
cell concept was developed in the early 1990s in response to consumer demand for slimmer
pack sizes. The prismatic cell makes almost maximum use of space when stacking.
The disadvantage of the prismatic cell is slightly lower energy densities compared to the
cylindrical equivalent. In addition, the prismatic cell is more expensive to manufacture and
does not provide the same mechanical stability enjoyed by the cylindrical cell. To prevent
bulging when pressure builds up, heavier gauge metal is used for the container. The
manufacturer allows some degree of bulging when designing the battery pack.
The prismatic cell is offered in limited sizes and chemistries and the capacities run from
about 400mAh to 2000mAh. Because of the very large quantities required for mobile phones,
custom prismatic cells are built to fit certain models.
If the design requirements demand less than 4 mm, the best (and perhaps the only choice) is
Li-ion polymer. This is the most expensive option.  The cost-to-energy ratio more than
doubles. The benefit of this architecture is strictly slim geometry. There is little or no gain in
energy density per weight and size over the 18650, even though the metal housing has been
eliminated.

Design origin
This type has technologically evolved from lithium-ion batteries. The primary difference is
that the lithium-salt electrolyte is not held in an organic solvent but in a solid polymer
composite such as polyethylene oxide or polyacrylonitrile. The advantages of Li-ion polymer
over the lithium-ion design include potentially lower cost of manufacture, adaptability to a
wide variety of packaging shapes, and ruggedness. Lithium-ion polymer batteries started
appearing in consumer electronics around 1996.

Technology

An experimental Li Ion Polymer Battery made by NASACells sold today as polymer

batteries are pouch cells. Unlike lithium-ion cylindrical cells, which have a rigid metal case,
pouch cells have a flexible, foil-type (polymer laminate) case. In cylindrical cells, the rigid
case presses the electrodes and the separator onto each other; whereas in polymer cells this
external pressure is not required because the electrode sheets and the separator sheets are
laminated onto each other.

Since individual pouch cells have no strong metal casing, by themselves they are over 20%
lighter than equivalent cylindrical cells. However, all Li-Ion cells expand at high levels of
SOC; if uncontained, this may result in delamination, and reduction of reliability and cycle
life; the case of cylindrical cells provides that containment, while pouch cells, by themselves,
are not contained. Therefore, to achieve the rated performance, a battery composed of pouch
cells must include an overall, strong, external casing to retain its shape.[1]

The voltage of a Li-poly cell varies from about 2.7 V (discharged) to about 4.23 V (fully
charged), and Li-poly cells have to be protected from overcharge by limiting the applied
voltage to no more than 4.235 V per cell used in a series combination. Overcharging a Li-
poly battery will probably cause explosion or fire. During discharge on load, the load has to
be removed as soon as the voltage drops below approximately 3.0 V per cell (used in a series
combination), or else the battery will subsequently no longer accept a full charge and may
experience problems holding voltage under load. This can be achieved, as with other lithium-
ion batteries, also harmed by under- and over-voltage, by circuitry that prevents overcharge
and deep discharge.

Early in its development, lithium polymer technology had problems with internal resistance.
Other challenges include longer charge times and slower maximum discharge rates compared
to more mature technologies. Li-poly batteries typically require more than an hour for a full
charge. Recent design improvements have increased maximum discharge currents from two
times to 15 or even 30 times the cell capacity (discharge rate in amperes, cell capacity in
ampere-hours). In December 2007 Toshiba announced a new design offering a much faster
rate of charge (about 5 minutes to reach 90%). These cells were released onto the market in
March 2008 and are expected to have a dramatic effect on the power tool and electric vehicle
industries, and a major effect on consumer electronics.[2]

When compared to the lithium-ion battery, Li-poly has a greater life cycle degradation rate.
However, in recent years, manufacturers have been declaring upwards of 500 charge-
discharge cycles before the capacity drops to 80% (see Sanyo). Another variant of Li-poly
cells, the "thin film rechargeable lithium battery", has been shown to provide more than
10,000 cycles

Applications
A compelling advantage of Li-poly cells is that manufacturers can shape the battery almost
however they please, which can be important to mobile phone manufacturers constantly
working on smaller, thinner, and lighter phones.

3-Cell LiPo for RC-modelsLi-poly batteries are also gaining favor in the world of radio-
controlled aircraft as well as radio-controlled cars, where the advantages of both lower weight
and greatly increased run times can be sufficient justification for the price. Some airsoft gun
owners have switched to LiPo batteries due to the above reasons and the increased rate of fire
they provide. However, lithium polymer-specific chargers are required to avoid fire and
explosion. Explosions can also occur if the battery is short-circuited, as tremendous current
passes through the cell in an instant. Radio-control enthusiasts take special precautions to
ensure their battery leads are properly connected and insulated. Furthermore fires can occur if
the cell or pack is punctured. Radio-controlled car batteries are often protected by durable
plastic cases to prevent puncture. Specially designed electronic motor speed controls are used
to prevent excessive discharge and subsequent battery damage. This is achieved using a low
voltage cutoff (LVC) setting that is adjusted to maintain cell voltage greater than (typically) 3
V per cell.

Li-poly batteries are also gaining ground in PDAs and laptop computers, such as Apple's
MacBook family, Amazon's Kindle, Lenovo's Thinkpad X300 and Ultrabay Batteries, the
OQO series of palmtops, the HP Mini and Dell products featuring D-bay batteries. They can
be found in small digital music devices such as iPods, Zunes, and other MP3 players and the
Apple iPhone, as well as gaming equipment like Sony's Playstation 3 wireless controllers[2].
They are desirable in applications where small form factors and energy density outweigh cost
considerations.
The Li-polymer differentiates itself from other battery systems in the type of electrolyte used.
The original design, dating back to the 1970s, uses a dry solid polymer electrolyte only. This
electrolyte resembles a plastic-like film that does not conduct electricity but allows an
exchange of ions (electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms). The polymer electrolyte
replaces the traditional porous separator, which is soaked with electrolyte.

The dry polymer design offers simplifications with respect to fabrication, ruggedness, safety
and thin-profile geometry. There is no danger of flammability because no liquid or gelled
electrolyte is used.

With a cell thickness measuring as little as one millimeter (0.039 inches), equipment
designers are left to their own imagination in terms of form, shape and size. It is possible to
create designs which form part of a protective housing, are in the shape of a mat that can be
rolled up, or are even embedded into a carrying case or piece of clothing. Such innovative
batteries are still a few years away, especially for the commercial market.

Unfortunately, the dry Li-polymer suffers from poor conductivity. Internal resistance is too
high and cannot deliver the current bursts needed for modern communication devices and
spinning up the hard drives of mobile computing equipment. Although heating the cell to
60°C (140°F) and higher increases the conductivity to acceptable levels, this requirement is
unsuitable in commercial applications.

Research is continuing to develop a dry solid Li-polymer battery that performs at room
temperature. A dry solid Li-polymer version is expected to be commercially available by
2005. It is expected to be very stable; would run 1000 full cycles and would have higher
energy densities than today’s Li-ion battery.

In the meantime, some Li-polymers are used as standby batteries in hot climates. One
manufacturer has added heating elements that keeps the battery in the conductive temperature
range at all times. Such a battery performs well for the application intended because high
ambient temperatures do not affect the service life of this battery in the same way it does the
VRLA, for example.

To make a small Li-polymer battery conductive, some gelled electrolyte has been added.
Most of the commercial Li-polymer batteries used today for mobile phones are a hybrid and
contain gelled electrolyte. The correct term for this system is ‘Lithium Ion Polymer’. For
promotional reasons, most battery manufacturers mark the battery simply as Li-polymer.
Since the hybrid lithium polymer is the only functioning polymer battery for portable use
today, we will focus on this chemistry

With gelled electrolyte added, what then is the difference between Li-ion and Li-ion
polymer? Although the characteristics and performance of the two systems are very similar,
the Li-ion polymer is unique in that it uses a solid electrolyte, replacing the porous separator.
The gelled electrolyte is simply added to enhance ion conductivity.

Technical difficulties and delays in volume manufacturing have deferred the introduction of
the Li-ion polymer battery. This postponement, as some critics argue, is due to ‘cashing in’
on the Li-ion battery. Manufacturers have invested heavily in research, development and
equipment to mass-produce the Li-ion. Now businesses and shareholders want to see a return
on their investment.
In addition, the promised superiority of the Li-ion polymer has not yet been realized. No
improvements in capacity gains have been achieved — in fact, the capacity is slightly less
than that of the standard Li-ion battery. For the present, there is no cost advantage in using
the Li-ion polymer battery. The thin profile has, however, compelled mobile phone
manufacturers to use this promising technology for their new generation handsets. One of the
advantages of the Li-ion polymer, however, is simpler packaging because the electrodes can
easily be stacked. Foil packaging, similar to that used in the food industry, is being used. No
defined norm in cell size has been established by the industry.

Advantages and Limitations of Li-ion Polymer Batteries

Advantages

Very low profile — batteries that resemble the profile of a credit card are feasible.

Flexible form factor — manufacturers are not bound by standard cell formats. With high
volume, any reasonable size can be produced economically.

Light weight – gelled rather than liquid electrolytes enable simplified packaging, in some
cases eliminating the metal shell.

Improved safety — more resistant to overcharge; less chance for electrolyte leakage.

Limitations
Lower energy density and decreased cycle count compared to Li-ion — potential for
improvements exist.

Expensive to manufacture — once mass-produced, the Li-ion polymer has the potential for
lower cost. Reduced control circuit offsets higher manufacturing costs.