Lithium-Ion and Other Cell Chemistries 77 storage is less than that of other chemistries with many lithium-ion chemistries losing only 1–5% per month. Capacity loss during storage comes in two types, reversible and permanent. Reversible capacity loss is that energy that is lost during storage but will be regained once the battery is cycled again. Permanent loss is that portion that will never be regained again. Virtually all lithium-ion chemistries have some amount of reversible capacity loss over time, some of which is generally always permanent. Finally, lithium-ion chemistries tend to have much better cycle life than the other chemistries.
Where PbA may only get 300–500 cycles before it reaches its end of life (EOL), lithium-ion can achieve thousands of full discharge cycles before reaching its EOL during 100% depth of dis- charge (DOD) cycles. If we look at partial cycles, the lithium-ion battery will be able to achieve tens of thousands of cycles as the DOD is reduced. For example, if we look at a typical lithium- ion chemistry, it may achieve 1000 cycles using 100% DOD, but if we take that same cell and use only 80% of its total usable energy, we will find that we can now get several thousand cycles.
Table 5 below summarizes some of the general performance characteristics of some of the most common lithium-ion chemistries that are in use today, including nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), nickel cobalt aluminum (NCA), lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium titanate (LTO), lithium manganese oxide (LMO), and lithium cobalt oxide (LCO). Table 5:
Lithium-ion chemistries Lithium Iron Phosphate Lithium Manganese Oxide Lithium Titanate Lithium Cobalt Oxide Lithium Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Cathode LFP LMO LTO LCO NCA NMC chemistry descriptor Specific energy 80–130 105–120 70 120–150 80–220 140–180 (Wh/kg) Energy density 220–250 250–265 130 250–450 210–600 325 (Wh/L) Specific power 1400–2400 1000 750 600 1500–1900 500–3000 (W/kg) Power density 4500 2000 1400 1200–3000 4000–5000 6500 (W/L) Volts (per cell) 3.2–3.3 3.8 2.2–2.3 3.6–3.8 3.6 3.6–3.7 (V) Cycle life 1000–2000 >500 >4000 >700 >1000 1000–4000 Self-discharge