Mechanical degradation in lithium-ion batteries Seminar

Event details

Li-ion cells are the fastest growing battery chemistry. They are already produced in their billions each year, and dominate the consumer electronics market. Although they offer high energy density and reasonable rate capability, before they can be widely adopted by the automotive sector, hurdles must be overcome in terms of cell lifetime. In this talk we will discuss one cause of cell deterioration, namely, mechanical pulverisation as some of the constituent materials swell/shrink on cell (dis)charge. After reviewing the relevant experimental data we propose a model that is capable of predicting the mechanical state of a cell. Owing to the complicated geometry of the device, solution to model must be obtained by means of homogenisation. After giving some details on the solution process we show that the results obtained exhibit good qualitative agreement with experimental measurements. Finally, we give some recommendations on strategies that could lead to increased cycle life.