# Ohio State Researchers Identify Why Lithium Batteries Age



## dragonsgate (May 19, 2012)

I was hoping to see some comments on this article. I gather from the info given the lithium transfer can cause early lose of power kind of like sulfating. The oldest lithium pack I am aware of is about 4 years old. If Lithiums start degrading even after 5 years or so it could be a blow to EV’s.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Lithium is a very generic term. Older laptop batteries are lucky to get more than 370 cycles while modern LiFePO4 is rated for 2000+.


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## dragonsgate (May 19, 2012)

It sounds to me like they are testing newer batteries. It also sounds like you for one are dismissing this as not being viable. If that is the case certainly hope you are right.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I would dismiss any study (or report of one) that provides no details. The only thing they say are these are from EVs, so they are an older chemistry.

They also claim this would affect performance, and lifecycle, but not by how much, so they didn't test anything and are making worthless conjecture.

No manufacturer claims the batteries last forever, so how can you say you've proven they won't last as long as expected just because you've proven a mechanism that would cause them to not last forever?


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

One look at the Article's title, 

"*The Domino Effect of Green Energy Failure*", (and note, in red)

is enough to tell that this is a political opinion piece rather than news.

Why?

Because Green Energy hasn't failed, it is doing just fine.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

The article mischaracterizes what the research has discovered. We already knew that lithium plating occurred, this research simply discovered that the lithium build up was not only on the graphite but also migrated through to the current collector. In no way does this mean that batteries will "fail earlier than expected", it simply shows in further detail some of the mechanism of capacity loss over time. In fact this could lead to future discoveries to avoid or reverse this plating.


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## rochesterricer (Jan 5, 2011)

I agree. The cycle life of these batteries has already been tested thoroughly. This isn't predicting early failure, it is merely explaining the degradation we already knew about.


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