Patent ID: 8574533

Claim:
A negative electrode material for non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries, comprising: a carbon material having a sphericity of at least 0.8, and exhibiting an average (002) interlayer spacing d 002 of 0.365-0.400 nm, a crystallite size in a c-axis direction LC (002) of 1.0-3.0 nm, as measured by X-ray diffractometry, a hydrogen-to-carbon atomic ratio (H/C) of at most 0.1 as measured by elementary analysis, and an average particle size Dv 50 (μm) of 1-20 μm, and nitrogen in an amount of 0.5-5 wt %; wherein the carbon material further exhibits a specific surface area S (m 2 /g) giving a product S×Dv 50 of 3-40 and the negative electrode material has a ratio D 4 /D 1 of at most 3.0 between a weight-average particle size D 4 and a length average particle size D 1 .