Analytical Techniques in the Battery Lifecycle

Listicle Analytical Techniques in the Battery Lifecycle Victoria Atkinson, PhD As the world shifts towards net zero, batteries will play an increasingly important part in our energy supply. Batteries are already commonplace in portable devices such as phones and laptops, and demand is rising for lithium-ion batteries that can power electric cars – over 14 million of which were sold global ly in 2023.1 The ability to store and redistribute electricity generated by renewables will also be a crucial step in meeting national power needs, without recourse to fossil fuel sources. But every battery application requires slightly different properties, whether those are performance factors such as power output and lifetime, or practical considerations such as cost, weight and size. The precise bal ance of these characteristics is determined by the internal chemistry of the battery and manufacturers must carefully control these complex interactions to tailor the device performance to each specific application. Naturally, this requires a deep understanding of the composition of each piece of the battery unit and analyt ical techniques are therefore essential at every stage in the production line. 1. Analysis of raw materials Lithium-ion batteries are the most widely used battery type, being particularly suited for small portable devices and electric vehicles thanks to their high energy density and excellent operating efficiency. Deposits of this critical mineral are found globally as part of mixed metal ores. But, with no single ore or geological formation acting as a commercial source, processing requirements for this raw material will vary across different mining sites. Each individual mixed deposit must be analyzed to determine the exact quantity and proportion of every constituent element to ensure each is separated efficientl This type of quantitative elemental identification is principally achieved through inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Fundamentally, this technique reads the “energy fingerprint” of each element in the sample to provide a quantitative breakdown of the elemental composition. In ICP-OES, the apparatus first generates a high-temperature plasma by passing a flow of inert gas (usually argon) through an induction coil running a high-frequency alternating current. Collisions of these gas atoms with electrons accelerated by a magnetic field around the coil ionize the carrier gas, which becomes a plas ma at temperatures above 6000 Kelvin. In the next stage, the sample is sprayed into the plasma stream as a mist. As the particles collide and interact with the plasma, individual atoms are ionized or excited, resulting 1 Credit: iStock