ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION There are two main industrial applications of graphite or more generally carbon fluoride compounds: as lubricants, and as cathode materials in lithium batteries. The first application results from the surface properties dominated by low sur face energies of the C-F2 and C-F3 group characteristic of hydrophobic fluo rocarbon [1]. The second application that is of interest in this chapter comes from the relative easiness of the swelling of the fluorinated carbon layers when subjected to the lithium intercalation during the battery discharge process. In addition, the high affinity of the (CF)„ reduction by lithium and the very low equivalent weight of the C and F elements allow high specific energy densities to be reached.
