How Lithium Iron Phosphate Works and its advantages

Katherine Liley, Sales & Marketing Associate

Basic Structure

A Lithium Iron Phosphate battery is a type of lithium-ion battery, which means it uses lithium ions to store and release energy. The key components in these batteries are:

1. Cathode – The positive side of the battery, made from Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4).
2. Anode – The negative side, typically made from graphite.
3. Electrolyte – A liquid or gel that allows lithium ions to move between the cathode and anode.
4. Separator – A barrier that keeps the cathode and anode from touching while still allowing ions to pass through.

How It Works

When the battery is charged, the following happens:

1. Lithium ions in the cathode (LiFePO4) are freed and move through the electrolyte toward the anode (graphite).
2. This movement of ions creates an electrical current that flows through the external circuit, powering devices connected to the battery.
3. The electrons that are released by the lithium ions also travel through the external circuit to provide electricity.

When the battery is discharged, the process reverses:

1. Lithium ions move from the anode back to the cathode (LiFePO4) through the electrolyte.
2. The flow of lithium ions creates an electrical current in the opposite direction, again powering your device.

Advantages

High Thermal Stability Of LiFePO4

One of the batteries significant advantages over other types of Lithium Ion batteries is that it’s less prone to overheating, catching fire or exploding. This is due to it not having any heavy metals in its composition, like cobalt, nickel or magnesium, which you will find in other Lithium Ion batteries.

Long Life Cycle

LiFePO4 has a longer life cycle than Lithium Ion batteries due to their chemical composition. They can endure thousands of charge to discharge cycles with minimal capacity fade. Meaning you can charge the battery to 100%, use it down to 0% recharge, do it all again, and the battery health won’t degrade.

Other litium ion batteries have a lower life cycles and are more prone to capacity fade as there charge – discharge cycles are lower.

Voltage

LiFePO4 has a lower voltage than other lithium ion batteries. Now this may seem like drawback,however it links to LiFePO4’s long life cycle. It means that the battery will last longer than other lithium batteries as they discharge there energy slower and steadier. Other Lithium batteris have a higher voltage which means they discharge  their energy quicker and won’t last as long.

Environment friendly

LiFePo4 is recyclabe , Lithium-ion is not.

If Lithoum Iron Phosphate is recycled properly, the Lithium and Phosphorus found in old battery can be recycled to help make new ones. It isn’t easy to extract Lithium from batteries especially ones with other rare metals like cobalt, if lithium ion batteries get crushed, compressed or even jostled enough for it to break the battery the barrier between the cathode and anode of the lithium iron battery will rupture causing a breakaway thermal reaction from the lithium molecules. These molecules can reach extreme heat within a short time, ignite or explode.