A review: Potential use of biomass as low-cost precursor for composite LiFePO₄/C cathode batteries preparation

The advance of human civilization is always followed by the need of energy. The estimation of energy demand in 2050 would be doubled from the current energy consumption. On the other side, the society could not rely on fossil fuel as primary power sources because of its uncontrolled CO2 emission and finite resources. Renewable energy sources would be a better even it is still suffered from some weaknesses such as land issues, high initial cost and lacks energy storage. Lithium-ion battery as one of promising energy storage device has enormous development from the first time it is manufactured until it became commercially available. Research on active cathode materials for lithium-ion battery became one branch of study that focused on enhancing its performance. LiFePO4 has been used as Li-ion battery cathode, but it still suffered some weaknesses such as low electrical and ionic conductivity. Carbon coating has been reported to be able to overcome the drawback in the forms of composite LiFePO4/C. This composite has also been proved to have better performance than stand-alone LiFePO4. The improvement is still being conducted to suppress the fabrication cost. One of the alternatives is by using biomass as carbon precursor for composite preparation. This article presents some reviews in the process of carbon preparation from biomass for composite LiFePO4/C preparation.