Studying the inhomogeneous aging behavior in commercial Li-ion batteries

The principle objective of this paper is to study the effect of factors (temperature and potential gradients) influencing inhomogeneous aging, inside commercial Li-ion batteries. A novel technique was proposed to surrogate this behavior using a network of coin cells; cycling tests were performed and the first results were analyzed. A single particle (SP) electrochemical cell model was developed, with the inclusion of a thermal dependent behavior, to compare with the experimental data. These electrochemical models were coupled such that they represent the coin cell network behavior. The models sufficiently represent both the individual cell behavior and both the network behavior, however after adequate assumptions; thus the model requires a revamp. Long-term cycling experiments are currently being undergone and future work involves complementing the model with an additional feature to represent the cell aging behavior.