What is LiFePO4 battery?

LiFePO4 battery, or LFP battery, the full name is the Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery, which belongs to one kind of rechargeable Lithium Batteries, battery takes LiFePO4 as cathode materials.

For original LiFePO4 have low electric conductivity, many battery manufacturers make efforts on improving original LiFePO4 materials, like nano-technology, metal-doping, carbon-coating etc. Takes metal-doping and carbon-coating to update original LiFePO4 materials for battery manufacturing.

What is the Amp-hour (AH)?

The Amp-hour (Ah) is used for describing how much energy that battery can store in. The volume of the constant current (in amps) multiple with time (in hours) then got Amp-hour (AH) as battery capacity. For example, if a Forzatec LiFePO4 cell, marked as "10AH @ 3C discharge, 25°C", it means in 25°C condition, if we discharge this battery with current no more than 30A (10AH, 3C), this battery can offer 10AH energy, like 30A current for 1/3 hour, or 5A current for 2 hours.

What is state of charge (SOC)?

SOC, short for the State of Charge, is used to describe how full a battery is. When a battery is fully charged, we can say that the SOC of this battery is 100%. SOC can be used to describe how fully the Lead acid battery charged, because lead acid battery always need to be fully charged for storage. Later nickel batteries and lithium batteries also take SOC to describe energy reserve. Here is a formula describing the relationship of SOC and DOD, that is "SOC = 100% - DOD".

What is depth of discharge (DOD)?

DOD, short for the Depth of Discharge, is used to describe how deeply the battery is discharged. If we say a battery is 100% fully charged, it means the DOD of this battery is 0%, If we say the battery have delivered 30% of its energy, here are 70% energy reserved, we say the DOD of this battery is 30%. And if a battery is 100% empty, the DOD of this battery is 100%. DOD always can be treated as how much energy that the battery delivered. For lithium batteries we do not suggest fully discharge them to 100% DOD, because it would shorten the cycle life of batteries.

What is self-discharge rate?

The self-discharge rate is a measure of how much batteries discharge on their own. The Self-Discharge rate is governed by the construction of the battery. Different types of batteries have different self-discharge rate.

What is CC/CV mode?

Constant current / constant voltage (CC/CV) charging mode is a effective way to charge lithium batteries. When a Lithium Battery is nearly empty, we take constant current to charge it. We need to make sure that charging current should be lower than the max charging current that battery can accepted. With constant charing the voltage of battery is slowly gaining up, when battery volt reaches the max charging voltage, charger would make sure charging voltage fixed as "constant voltage" and reduce the charging current. When battery is fully charged this state would be stopped.

What is Battery cycle life?

Battery cycle life is defined as the number of complete charge - discharge cycles a battery can perform before its nominal capacity falls below 80% of its initial rated capacity. Different types of batteries have different cycle life, and LiFePO4 Batteries life time of 2000 cycles are typical.

How to extend the battery cycle life?

Singal cell is an independent unit which contains a complete chemical reaction environment inside. For nominal usage we need to make sure that cells / batteries are under specified conditions that data-sheet described. For lithium batteries, we suggest to take consideration of working temperature, and do not fully charged to 100% SOC and do not fully discharged to 100% DOD when using, and by maintaining the battery this way the cycle life of LiFePO4 could be effectively extended.