Solid-State Lithium-Air Batteries

Lithium-air rechargeable batteries have attracted much attention because of their fairly large specific energy density. During this quarter century, three types of lithium-air batteries—namely nonaqueous, aqueous, and solid state—have been proposed. The research efforts have been concentrated on the nonaqueous system because it is simpler compared with the aqueous system and is expected to develop a battery with a higher energy and power density than the solid-state system. However, decomposition of the electrolyte in nonaqueous systems by the reaction products is a challenging problem to commercialization. The solid systems are considered to be stable for the reaction of the electrolyte with the reaction products and safer than the nonaqueous system with a flammable electrolyte. In this chapter, we introduce the present perspective on solid-state lithium-air rechargeable batteries. We will emphasize lithium dendrite formation at the lithium electrode.