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When we choose mobile power supplies, we often see two different types of battery cells, lithium-ion and lithium-polymer, on the outer packaging or promotional manual of the product. So, what are the differences between them, which are both lithium-ion batteries? For some consumers, are lithium polymer batteries really better than lithium-ion batteries? With these questions in mind, today the author will provide a detailed introduction to the advantages and disadvantages of these two types of batteries in terms of price, performance, and safety.

Firstly, structurally speaking, the full name of lithium polymer battery should be lithium-ion polymer battery. Therefore, it can be seen that lithium polymer battery is actually a type of lithium-ion battery. The biggest difference between the two is that they use different electrolytes internally. Lithium ion batteries use liquid electrolytes, while polymer lithium-ion batteries use solid polymer electrolytes instead. These polymers can be solid or semi-solid (gel like).

Cylindrical lithium-ion battery

Secondly, in terms of appearance, most mobile power supplies currently available on the market use either cylindrical (i.e. 18650) lithium-ion batteries or block shaped lithium-polymer batteries. So when choosing a mobile power supply, if the outer packaging of the product does not specifically indicate the type of battery cell used, then we can simply have a rough understanding of the type of battery used inside the product based on its thickness.

Lithium ion batteries are an improved product of lithium batteries. Due to the highly reactive chemical properties of lithium metals, early lithium batteries often experienced combustion and other issues during use. In order to suppress the active chemical properties of lithium metal, people have greatly enhanced the safety factor of early lithium batteries by adding other metal materials such as cobalt and manganese to the positive electrode material of lithium batteries.

Insertion and deintercalation of lithium-ion batteries

The charging and discharging of lithium-ion batteries can be completed through two processes: insertion and removal. During discharge, lithium ions are removed from the positive electrode material to the electrolyte, and then enter the negative electrode material like water entering a sponge. This process is called removal. In the charging state, this process is the opposite, called embedding. The left in the figure shows the insertion process of the lithium battery, and the right shows the removal process.

The most common 18650 battery

It can be said that after years of development, the technology of lithium-ion batteries has become relatively mature, and large-scale production has made their manufacturing costs very low. So lithium-ion batteries have a price advantage over lithium polymer batteries. That's why most devices such as laptops currently use this type of battery cell.

18650 battery structure

Due to the use of liquid electrolytes, lithium ions can cause a sudden increase in internal pressure under overcharging (overcharging). Therefore, in order to avoid explosions in the sealed metal casing, this 18650 battery is usually equipped with a safety valve at the top. When the internal pressure of the battery is too high, the top safety valve will automatically pop out to reduce pressure. However, when the safety valve pops out, the leaked lithium ions inside the battery may still catch fire due to contact with oxygen in the air.

Therefore, for electronic products using this lithium-ion battery cell, there are very high requirements for its internal charge and discharge protection IC. However, based on the years of development of lithium-ion batteries, both the design of the battery itself and the technical level of various protective ICs have become very mature. As long as we can use it correctly in daily use and avoid the phenomenon of the battery being punctured by hard objects, the 18650 battery cell is still very safe. Otherwise, the vast majority of laptops on the market would not use this type of battery.

Compared to lithium-ion batteries using liquid electrolytes, lithium-ion batteries using solid polymer electrolytes have the characteristic of ultra-thin shape, with a theoretical minimum thickness of up to 0.5mm, as well as the characteristics of arbitrary shape and arbitrary area. The greatly improved flexibility of battery design allows for better production of new generation lithium batteries of any shape and capacity.

Lithium polymer batteries

In addition, lithium polymer batteries using solid polymer electrolytes have a higher energy density compared to ordinary lithium-ion batteries, which means that under the same volume, lithium polymer batteries have advantages such as lighter weight and higher capacity.

Lithium polymer batteries are lighter and thinner

If strictly speaking, lithium-ion polymer batteries are similar to lithium-ion batteries that use liquid electrolytes in terms of positive electrode, negative electrode, electrolyte, and working principle, with only differences in separator and packaging materials. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, lithium-ion polymer batteries are also a type of lithium-ion battery.

So, for lithium-ion batteries with different packaging forms, they have the following characteristics:

★ Steel shell lithium-ion battery:

The common type is the 18650 battery with a steel shell, which has a high safety factor, mature production technology, and is cheaper compared to polymer batteries. It occupies the majority of the lithium battery market share and is most common in laptop batteries.

★ Soft pack lithium-ion battery (polymer battery):

With higher energy density, better safety performance, and arbitrary shape, it has become the preferred battery cell for most mainstream digital products. However, compared to steel shell lithium-ion batteries, the price is still relatively high.

Summary: In fact, both steel shell lithium-ion batteries and soft pack lithium-ion batteries have excellent safety performance. After all, the production technology of lithium-ion batteries is already very mature. As long as high temperatures, short circuits, overcharging, punctures and other situations are avoided during daily use, we can avoid the occurrence of unexpected situations such as explosions and fires. For the commonly mentioned lithium-ion batteries and lithium-polymer batteries, both have their own advantages and disadvantages. If you are more inclined towards the cost-effectiveness of the product, choose the 18650 battery. If you are more inclined towards the appearance and volume of mobile power sources, then the slightly more expensive lithium-polymer battery is the first choice.

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