What are the advantages and disadvantages of LiFePO4 battery?

Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery differ from Lithium-ion battery which using phosphate as anode material. It is popular use to motive batteries, such as electric bikes, motorcycles, light electric vehicles and pure electric vehicle.

LiFePO4 battery advantages:

☆ Longer cycle life - LiFePO4 batteries offers a longer cycle life than Lithium-ion batteries and Lithium-ion Polymer batteries. Qualified LiFePO4 cells should remain 80% DOD after 2000 cycles of charging and discharging.

☆ Safety and stability - LiFePO4 batteries has one key advantage over other Lithium-ion batteries is the superior thermal and chemical stability, which provides better safety characteristics than Lithium-ion batteries with other cathode materials.

☆ Constant output power - Unlike other Lithium-ion batteries, LiFePO4 batteries have a very constant discharge voltage. Voltage stays close to 3.2 V during discharge until the cell is exhausted. This allows the cell to deliver virtually full power until it is discharged.

☆ Environmentally friendly - LiFePO4 batteries are non-toxic, non-contaminating and contain no rare earth metals, making them an environmentally conscious choice. The use of LiFePO4 also reduces the cost and environmental concerns of Lithium Cobalt cells, particularly in regards of cobalt entering the environment through improper disposal.

There are also other advantages same as Lithium-ion battery:

☆ Low self-discharge

☆ Non memory effect

☆ Quick Charging

☆ Low maintenance

☆ No requirement for priming

LiFePO4 battery disadvantages:

* Lower energy density - The energy density of LiFePO4 battery is lower than Lithium-ion batteries, e.g. the highest capacity of LiFePO4 18650 battery is 1800mAh, but the highest Lithium-ion 18650 battery can be 3600mAh(Made by Panasonic).

* Poor performance under low temperature - LiFePO4 batteries has poor performance when discharging at -20℃. However, low temperature Lithium-ion or Lithium Polymer batteries can discharge at -40℃ and output 70-80% DOD.

* Low tap density - Tap density of LiFePO4 batteries only 0.8-1.3, that makes them lost the condition to use on small portable devices like mobile phone. So most of LiFePO4 batteries are using as power batteries for electric bikes, LEV or EV.

Other disadvantages are similar to Lithium-ion battery:

* Protection required

* Aging effect

* Transportation problems

* Deep discharge