CHARACTERIZATION OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES

With the aggressive growth of the lithium-ion battery market, several companies have recently offend their version of the lithium-ion batter y for consumer purchase. This paper describes the physical design, rat e, cycle-lifetime, and self-discharge performance of cells from Sony, Matsushita, A&T, Moli, and Sanyo lithium-ion batteries. The study used a total of 85 lithium-ion cells from these manufacturers. All cells p erformed as indicated by manufacturers' specifications and the perform ance and design differences are discussed. The design differences incl ude discussion of gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysi s of the electrolytes, a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analy sis of separators, the activation of a positive temperature coefficien t (PTC), and a comparison of the basic physical parameters of each cel l. Performance characterization shows an excellent high discharge rate performance of the A&T and Matsushita cells, an excellent cycle-lifet ime performance for Sony cells, and negligible effects of self-dischar ge. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.