What are the advantages and disadvantages of Lithium manganese iron phosphate compared with Lithium iron phosphate?

Lithium iron phosphate is an electrode material for lithium ion batteries, it’s chemical formula is LiFePO₄ (LFP for short), mainly used in a variety of Lithium ion batteries. LFP has an orderly and regular olivine structure, in which the Li ions have one-dimensional mobility. During the process of charging and discharging, Li ion can be reversibly released and embedded.

LFP started earlier, the technology developed more mature, its core advantages are low cost, environmentally friendly, high safety performance, better structure stability and cycle performance. The disadvantages are in poor performance at a low temperature and low density.

Lithium manganese iron phosphate belongs to the mixed product of LFP and lithium manganese phosphate, with the same structure like LFP, they are all orderly olivine structure. Lithium manganese iron phosphate and LFP have the same advantages of low cost, high safety performance, high heat stability, occurring no spontaneous combustion under acupuncture and overcharging, long cycle life, safety without explosion risk, which can be said combing the advantages of LFP with the advantages of lithium manganese phosphate, therefore it is also known as the “upgraded version of LFP”.

The comparison of parameters between LFP and lithium manganese iron phosphate.

1. Higher energy density of battery and higher endurance.

The theoretical capacity of lithium manganese iron phosphate is the same as that of LFP, it is 170mAh/g; However, the electrode potential of lithium manganese iron phosphate relative to Li/Li is 4.1V, much higher than 3.4V of LFP, and it is located in the stable electrochemical window of organic electrolyte system, improving 0.7V compared with LFP, platform voltage increased by 20%, thus the energy density of lithium manganese iron phosphate increases from 578Wh/kg to 697Wh/kg at the same volume mass.

2. Lower producing costs.

The main difference of material consumption of lithium manganese iron phosphate and LFP is the change in the consumption of manganese source. The positive electrode of LFP needs 0.61kg of iron source per kWh, and the positive electrode of lithium manganese iron phosphate needs 0.13kg of iron and 0.38kg of manganese source source per kWh.

Disadvantages of lithium manganese iron phosphate

Lithium manganese iron phosphate has following disadvantages compared with LFP:

1. The cycle life of lithium manganese iron phosphate is shorter, the ability of charging and discharging is worse. The addition of manganese element in lithium manganese iron phosphate will lead to shorter cycle life, worse charging and discharging capacity and reducing life.

2. The low conductivity of lithium manganese iron phosphate leads to the difficulty in performing its capacity, and the side reaction with electrolyte will lead to the difficulty in performing its capacity of the material.

As an unity model battery, the lithium manganese iron phosphate cathode battery represents the future development direction of battery. It is the optimal power battery ever invented till today. It may be the cheapest power battery in the future, which is one of the core products in future development of the battery industry with unparalleled advantages compared with other power batteries.