What is Lithium Battery?

Lithium battery can be treated as a generic terms of all batteries contains Lithium materials, including nonrechargeable lithium batteries and rechargeable lithium batteries.

Nonrechargeable lithium batteries also named as lithium primary batteries. Including lithium thionyl battery(Li-SOCl2) and lithium manganese dioxide battery(Li-MnO2). Both chemistries have high energy type and high power type cells.

Li-SOCl2 primary battery: nominal voltage 3.6V per cell, most of them are cylindrical cells, e.g. ER14250(1/2AA size) 3.6V 1200mAh, ER14505(AA size) 3.6V 2500mAh, ER34615(D size) 3.6V 19Ah and so on...

Li-MnO2 primary batteries: nominal voltage 3.0V per cell, have both cylindrical and prismatic(soft package) shapes. e.g. CR17335(CR123A) 3.0V 1500mAh, CR34615(D size) 3.0V 11Ah, CP305050 3.0V 1500mAh, CP9V 9.0V 1200mAh and so on...

Rechargeable lithium batteries contains several types in different chemistries:

· Lithium cobalt oxide(LiCoO2) - nominal voltage 3.7V per cell

· Lithium manganese(LiMn2O2) - nominal voltage 3.7V per cell

· Lithium ternary(LiNiCoMnO2) - nominal voltage 3.6V per cell

· Lithium iron phosphate(LiFePO4) - nominal voltage 3.2V per cell

· Lithium titanate(LTO) - nominal voltage 2.4V per cell

Also, rechargeable lithium batteries can be divided into 4 different categories:

☆ Lithium-ion(Li-ion)

☆ Lithium-ion Polymer(Li-Polymer)

☆ Lithium iron phosphate(LiFePO4)

☆ Lithium titanate(LTO)

Li-ion and Li-Polymer can be built with LiCoO2, LiMn2O2 and LiNiCoMnO2, so you will see 3.6V and 3.7V Li-ion/Li-Polymer cells. Just because different chemistry have different average operating voltage. Nowadays, most of Li-ion and Li-Polymer batteries are using LiNiCoMnO2 as anode chemistry for reducing cost and better safety performance. Li-ion and Li-Polymer are same battery technology just differ in construction and packaging.

Kinstar as an expert in battery industry, we are able to provide the best solution for our customers' application.