Trends in carbon material as an anode in lithium-ion battery

Abstract

As sales of small mobile equipment such as mobile phones, notebook-sized personal computers, and camcorders have rapidly increased, so too has the demand for the lithium-ion battery used as the main power supply of these devices rapidly increased. Moreover, electric vehicles definitely are expected to be a solution of the worldwide environmental problems, and the development of the lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery as their power source is now at the stage of practical use.1 The Li-Ion battery has advantages compared to the nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) battery and the nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) battery such as its higher energy densities per volume and per weight, so miniaturization and reduced weight of equipment are possible. Moreover, further developments in the Li-Ion batteries, such as improvement in energy density and high rate charge/discharge capability, are expected due to the requirement of the small mobile devices using them. Although amorphous carbon 2 and spherical mesophase base graphite have been used mainly as anode materials in Li-Ion batteries, artificial graphitic carbon with lower voltage and the higher energy density3 is being used mainly to fulfill the difficult requirement for mobile equipment in recent years. In this chapter, details of the massive artificial graphite (MAG) with excellent anode performance in the Li-Ion battery will be described. MAG is developed for the mass production of a unique graphite for the purpose of battery application, based on various knowledge about conventional production technology of artificial graphite. This material shares about 70% of the anode material market for Li-Ion batteries produced in Japan. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.