LTO, to good to be true or not?

[GeorgeF]

Makes sense Sunking.
Perhaps better Troyan FLA and replacing few times or like Mike NIFE.

After so many years lead acid is still the best option then...???

Nevertheless, i will order few cells more to get 5s just for a try out. Not a so big risk for a gamble.

[ICPete]

There is a major Japanese manufacturer making LTO cells; Toshiba:

https://www.toshiba.com/tic/power-electronics/scib-rechargeable-battery

LTO cells are primarily used in transport vehicles, such as city buses. Their major advantages over other lithium chemistries are:

1. High charge and discharge rates (specific power, i.e., watts per kg).
2. Work well at low temperatures.
3. Extremely long cycle life.
4. Much safer than some other lithium chemistries.
5. Tolerate abuse, such as over-discharge and over-charge, quite well.

However there are two HUGE disadvantages: high cost and low specific energy (w-hr per kg).
There are one or two car manufacturers putting them in EVs (Honda FIT is one I believe). But they really aren't very suitable for passenger cars.
I think they are nearly ideal for stationary energy storage, like PV, except for the very high cost.

I think Toshiba has recently (past few years) introduced a modified LTO chemistry, that gets higher w-hr/kg, but not sure of the details.

The major difference is that in LTO cells the anode is a nano-structured lithium titanate compound, whereas in all other lithium chemistries the anode is graphite. This n-LTO has a lower voltage than graphite but eliminates SEI formation and other issues, leading to the longer cycle life. So to balance the low voltage of the anode, the cathode is typically made of Li-NiMnCo-O or Li-NiCoAl-O (aka NMC or NCA).

A US company, AltairNano, is apparently still doing development work with LTO batteries. There's quite a bit of info available online with a search.

Unless you can find a source of very low-cost NOS LTO cells, such as you can occasionally find on eBay, for perhaps half the cost quoted above, it does seem that LiFePO cells make more sense. It depends on how much faith you have that the LTO cells will actually provide 5X the cycle life of LiFePO (10K cycles vs 2K cycles)!

[inetdog]

Wrong Voltage is not any sort of safety indicator.

At a minimum you also need to monitor cell (not battery) temperatures.