The secret behind rechargeable batteries that really last
It’s an all-too-familiar situation: you’re trying to scan your online train ticket, find an unfamiliar location using Google Maps, or let your family know that you’re delayed – when your phone runs out of battery. And you charged it only that morning! Most of us constantly have to remind ourselves to charge our phones in order to avoid these situations. And, to top it off, all this charging wears down our batteries, so that our phones often need replacing after only a couple of years.
In an ideal world, a full charge cycle would last for more than a few hours – and the battery itself would be able to withstand lots of these charge cycles. And, as our reliance on rechargeable battery-powered devices – from smartphones to electric cars – increases, this will only become more important.
Three key elements, one golden ratio
As such, enabling long charge cycles and battery lifetimes is a top priority for battery manufacturers. One of the secrets to this? Elemental composition! Specifically, the ratio between nickel, manganese, and cobalt in a battery’s cathode determines its energy density (and the lifetime of one charge cycle) as well as the number of charge cycles it can withstand.
These two characteristics must be carefully balanced – so battery producers have to optimize this ratio for specific applications. Not only does this produce more effective, high-value batteries, but it also enables manufacturers to avoid the high cost and adverse environmental impact of cobalt. In other words, a reliable elemental analysis method is essential for both battery reliability and commercial success.
Rapid elemental analysis with XRF
That’s where X-ray fluorescence (XRF) comes in. Although traditionally overlooked, it provides significant benefits to battery manufacturing. Specifically, it can determine the elemental composition in just 10 minutes during production. By contrast, alternative techniques such as inductively-coupled plasma analysis (ICP) have much longer feedback times – resulting in inefficiency or uncertainty. So, it’s no surprise that manufacturers throughout the battery industry are increasingly adopting XRF.
Want to learn more? Watch this space…
At Malvern Panalytical, we offer several XRF solutions for these manufacturers, from energy-dispersive benchtop systems to wavelength-dispersive high-performance systems. Want to find out how they could support your battery production too? Join our dedicated XRF webinar on April 29th! We’ll be diving even further into the advantages of XRF, showing how our solutions can help, and, of course, answering all your questions.
If you’re a process engineer, lab manager, or quality engineer looking to boost production efficiency, this webinar is for you – and everyone else in the battery world is also welcome. So, don’t miss out! A world of better battery production – and rechargeable batteries that really do last – is waiting…
Want to discover more about the benefits of XRF? Register for our webinar today – and in the meantime, check out our XRF webpages!