Why Lithium-ion Technology?

The most significant benefit of Lithium-ion battery technology is mass saving. Lithium-ion will
provide a step change in spacecraft battery performance similar to the one that Nickel Hydrogen
(NiH2) technology provided for GEO communication satellites. The relative mass performance of
different space battery technologies is shown below:

The development of Lithium-ion technology has followed a very different path to that of NiH2
(Nickel Hydride). NiH2 has no application in terrestrial consumer products due to its complicated
charge management requirements, safety concerns, and intolerance to abuse or temperature
extremes. Consequently, there was a long period of time from the invention to realisation in space
applications.

In contrast, there was only a short amount of time between AEA Technologys invention and
commercial realisation by Sony. Lithium-ion is now a mature technology for terrestrial applications
with over 0.5 billion cells having been mass produced by Sony since 1992. Since the original
invention, slightly different variants of Lithium-ion chemistry have been pursued and these offer
comparatively small improvements in mass and volume efficiency but, as yet, the benefits for space
applications are unproven. As a new technology proposed for space, these minor differences in
theoretical efficiency are irrelevant compared with the benefits to be gained from using the most
mature and well-characterised cells. These are the Sony Hard Carbon (HC) cells, which have been in
mass production since 1992 and have accumulated significant calendar and cycle life history. The
uniformity and repeatability of the Sony HC cell is proof that the production process is well
understood and controlled.

Aside from mass, there are many other benefits of Lithium-ion over NiH2 technology, for example:

Simple charge control
State of charge easily derived from open circuit voltage
Graceful and predictable degradation through life - no sudden failure
Non-hazardous
High tolerance to abuse: thermal, high-rate discharge
High reliability built-in overcharge protection
Hermetically sealed following over-charge protection activation
Simple thermal control
Wide operating temperature range
Relaxed temperature uniformity requirement
Simplified management during AIT and spacecraft integration
Low rate of self-discharge
There are some aspects of Lithium-ion chemistry that are particularly different to other battery
technologies and these are discussed in the following paragraphs.