Battery knowledge · Other and emerging chemistries

Bipolar battery

A battery built from bipolar electrodes: one shared current collector carries positive material on one face and negative material on the other, so stacked layers form cells in series inside one housing. Current flows straight through the stack instead of through tabs and busbars, cutting resistance and parts; Toyota’s 2021 Aqua hybrid used a bipolar nickel–metal hydride pack.

Also called
bipolar electrode, bipolar stacking

Example

Other and emerging chemistries: an example situation

Two chemistries can meet the same energy target with different voltage windows and charge termination.

Read Bipolar battery alongside Busbar in this context. A rigid copper or aluminium conductor that joins cell terminals into series and parallel groups, and modules into the pack. Its cross-section is sized for current and heating, and its joints — welded or bolted — are a classic source of resistance and failure.

Use in Lemonergy

Do not carry lithium-ion assumptions into every chemistry.

This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.

References & further reading

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

  1. Promise and reality of post-lithium-ion batteries with high energy densities

    Jang Wook Choi, Doron Aurbach · Nature Reviews Materials · 2016

    Topic background · Post-lithium-ion materials and battery concepts, including practical cell-level limitations; historical 2016 perspective.

  2. DOE/EPRI 2013 Electricity Storage Handbook in Collaboration with NRECA

    Sandia National Laboratories · 2013

    Topic background · Storage technologies and grid services. The publisher notes that its historical cost and deployment figures are outdated.