A book that covers almost everything about batteries
Anyone with a high school level of chemistry can understand it.

"The Story of Secondary Batteries for Beginners," which covers almost everything about batteries, was written by Taku Shiraishi, a famous Japanese science writer, and was carefully reviewed by Dr. Chi-Hwan Han of the Korea Institute of Energy Research to supplement the Korean situation.
This book contains several chemical equations, which are essential for explaining chemical cells, which generate electricity through chemical reactions.
But there is no need to be scared in advance.
The easy formulas are at a middle school level, and the difficult formulas can be understood with just a high school level of chemistry knowledge.
Secondary batteries are becoming as important a source of income as semiconductors, especially for our country, so interest in them is bound to be high.
"The Story of Secondary Batteries for Beginners" will not only answer basic questions about secondary batteries, but will also serve as a foundation for the development of superior secondary batteries in Korea that surpass existing secondary batteries.

There are many different types of batteries besides lithium-ion batteries and dry cells.
Batteries can first be classified into chemical batteries and physical batteries according to their basic principles.
A chemical cell is a device that generates electricity through a chemical reaction.
Dry cells and lithium-ion batteries belong to the chemical battery category.

Chemical cells can be further classified into primary cells, secondary cells, and fuel cells.
Primary batteries are disposable batteries that stop working once their capacity is used up, and must be discarded once discharged.
Remote controls and clocks usually use primary batteries such as alkaline manganese batteries.
Of course, some people use secondary batteries such as nickel-metal hydride batteries.
A secondary battery is a battery that can be recharged and reused multiple times after it is completely used up. It is also called a rechargeable battery or storage battery.
Lithium-ion batteries are secondary batteries.

--- p.19-20

Chemical batteries can be classified into several types depending on the device and conditions of use.
There are four types of cylindrical batteries that we commonly use: D, C, AA, AAA, and N.
In addition to the primary batteries such as manganese batteries and alkaline manganese batteries, cylindrical batteries also include secondary batteries such as nickel-cadmium batteries (Ni-Cd batteries), nickel-hydrogen batteries, and lithium-ion batteries.
Among the batteries, there are also rectangular batteries that are larger than cylindrical batteries.
Square batteries are also called stacked batteries because they contain multiple batteries connected in series.
The voltage of one battery is 1.5V, so the voltage of a square battery made by connecting six batteries is 9V.
Square batteries are mainly used in devices that require high voltage, such as power tools and remote-controlled cars.
Square batteries include manganese batteries, alkaline manganese batteries, and nickel-metal hydride batteries.

--- p.24

In a voltaic cell, the zinc plate is the cathode and the copper plate is the anode.
Why are there two metals, one cathode and the other anode? The reason is that zinc ions more readily than copper.
That is because the ionization tendency, which is the degree to which the metal dissolves in a solution and becomes a cation, is large.
The ionization tendencies of major metals are summarized in Table 1-2, and the ionization tendencies are also explained in detail on page 40.
However, the real reason why current flows in a voltaic cell is not the difference in ionization tendencies of zinc and copper, but the difference in ionization tendencies of the three elements: zinc, copper, and hydrogen.
Copper has a lower tendency to ionize than hydrogen, so it is practically insoluble in dilute sulfuric acid.
Meanwhile, zinc has a greater tendency to ionize than hydrogen, so when placed in dilute sulfuric acid, it dissolves and becomes zinc ions, and hydrogen gas is generated on the surface of zinc.
Therefore, when zinc and copper plates are placed in dilute sulfuric acid, the zinc dissolves and the copper remains intact.
And if you connect these two with a wire, you get a voltaic cell.
--- p.39

As the name suggests, alkaline manganese batteries have many similarities to manganese batteries.
For example, the negative active material is zinc and the positive active material is manganese dioxide, which is the same as a manganese dry cell.
The nominal voltage (electromotive force) is also 1.5 V for both.
However, the structure of the cathode and anode is the exact opposite of that of a manganese battery.
In alkaline manganese batteries, a metal case such as iron serves as the positive electrode current collector, and inside it is a mixture of manganese dioxide, which is the positive electrode active material, and carbon powder in pellet form.
The negative active material is a gel-like mixture of zinc powder and a depolarizing agent that prevents hydrogen generation.
This negative active material is filled inside the separator, which is permeated with electrolyte.
Additionally, there is a brass rod in the center, which is the negative current collector.
Of course, the brass rod is the negative electrode and is not connected to the positive terminal of the battery (Figure 2-3).
In this way, the alkaline manganese battery has a structure that turns the inside out of the manganese battery.

--- p.82-83

The biggest drawback of NiCd batteries is that they use cadmium, which is harmful to the human body, as an electrode.
It was the high concentration of cadmium in mine wastewater that caused 'Itai-itai disease', one of the pollution-related diseases that shook Japan in the 1960s.
The reason Edison developed the nickel-iron battery was to avoid using harmful cadmium.
In addition to being harmful to the human body, nickel-cadmium batteries also have the disadvantages of memory effect, severe self-discharge, and the risk of thermal runaway.
Thermal runaway is the English word for thermal runaway, and it refers to a phenomenon in which heat causes heat generation, making it impossible to control the temperature and causing it to become abnormally hot.
--- p.136

When you stop discharging and recharge a secondary battery while it still has some capacity remaining, the voltage may suddenly drop even though there is still usable capacity left.
This is called the memory effect, which is a phenomenon that makes it appear as if the capacity has decreased.
In particular, if charging and discharging are repeated while leaving a certain capacity, the memory effect becomes noticeable around that capacity.
It is called memory because it seems as if the battery remembers when it was last charged.

However, the memory effect does not occur in all secondary batteries.
Among the major secondary batteries, it occurs most frequently in nickel-cadmium batteries, but also in nickel-metal hydride batteries.
On the other hand, the memory effect has almost no effect on lithium-ion batteries, and does not occur at all in lead-acid batteries.

--- p.193

In addition to lithium-ion batteries, there are various batteries that use lithium or lithium alloys as electrodes.
First, if we classify lithium batteries according to the principle of battery reaction, they can be divided into lithium-ion batteries that use lithium alloy as the positive electrode and lithium metal batteries that use lithium metal (or lithium alloy) as the negative electrode.
Lithium metal batteries are also called simply lithium batteries and are generally primary batteries, but there are also secondary batteries that use lithium alloys as cathodes.
There is a reason why lithium is so popular as an electrode material.

--- p.214

Looking at the history of lithium-ion batteries, developing methods to deal with fire and explosion accidents has been a major research topic.
The causes of accidents can be broadly divided into mechanical and electrochemical causes.
Mechanical causes include strong impact, dropping, scratching, and device malfunction, while electrochemical causes include over-discharge, over-charging, long-term storage, and improper use.
Improper usage includes, for example, inserting batteries upside down without observing the positive and negative markings, connecting new and old batteries, or connecting different types of batteries.
However, most secondary batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, cannot avoid the effects of heat because the discharge itself is an exothermic reaction.
Therefore, temperature control and prevention of thermal runaway of the battery are very important.
For reference, NiCd and NAS batteries are exothermic reactions during discharge, but nickel-metal hydride batteries are endothermic during discharge and exothermic during charging.
--- p.261

Research into next-generation secondary batteries is testing a wide variety of possibilities, so there are numerous candidate batteries.
The main performance improvements that are being attempted are summarized in Figure 5-1, using electric vehicles as an example.
The research subjects of each item are mainly divided into three areas: electrolyte, anode, and cathode.
If we were to pick the top five promising next-generation secondary batteries currently under research, they would be ① all-solid-state batteries, ② lithium-sulfur batteries, ③ metal-air batteries, ④ sodium-ion batteries, and ⑤ multi-ion batteries.
But there are many other notable batteries out there, so it's hard to say which one will dominate the world in the future.

--- p.282