Zülke 2021 J. Electrochem. Soc. 168 120522
Zülke 2021 J. Electrochem. Soc. 168 120522
Zülke 2021 J. Electrochem. Soc. 168 120522
Society
We demonstrate the predictive power of a parametrised Doyle-Fuller-Newman (DFN) model of a commercial cylindrical (21700)
lithium-ion cell with NCA/Gr-SiOx chemistry. Model parameters result from the deconstruction of a fresh commercial cell to
determine/confirm chemistry and micro-structure, and also from electrochemical experiments with half-cells built from electrode
samples. The simulations predict voltage profiles for (i) galvanostatic discharge and (ii) drive-cycles. Predicted voltage responses
deviate from measured ones by <1% throughout at least ∼95% of a full galvanostatic discharge, whilst the drive cycle discharge is
matched to a ∼1%–3% error throughout. All simulations are performed using the online computational tool DandeLiion, which
rapidly solves the DFN model using only modest computational resources. The DFN results are used to quantify the irreversible
energy losses occurring in the cell and deduce their location. In addition to demonstrating the predictive power of a properly
validated DFN model, this work provides a novel simplified parametrisation workflow that can be used to accurately calibrate an
electrochemical model of a cell.
© 2021 The Electrochemical Society (“ECS”). Published on behalf of ECS by IOP Publishing Limited. [DOI: 10.1149/1945-7111/
ac3e4a]
Manuscript submitted September 10, 2021; revised manuscript received November 10, 2021. Published December 10, 2021. This
paper is part of the JES Focus Issue on Women in Electrochemistry.
Supplementary material for this article is available online
Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) are likely to remain the main energy carefully designed to ensure the overall conservation of lithium
storage technology powering portable electronics, stationary energy within the device.6,7 At an even more detailed level simulations of
storage units and electric vehicles over the next few decades. lithium transport can be performed on electrode particle geometries
Furthermore, the share of the automotive market held by electric extracted from microscopy measurements conducted on real elec-
vehicles is predicted to carry on growing precipitately. The trode geometries, see for example,8 though these are extremely
continued rapid growth in the LiB market has provided the drive computationally expensive and certainly are no better at fitting to
for a swift expansion in lithium battery sub-technologies that are discharge data from real cells than is the DFN model.
being brought from the lab onto the market; these include the In contrast to other modelling approaches, the implementation of
development of new electrode materials, cell designs, and cell DFN models guarantees i) higher accuracy over other traditionally
chemistries. Despite these new developments in materials and cell faster and easier simulation approaches, such as equivalent circuits,
architecture, the physics underpinning the operation and ageing of and ii) does not require large data-sets, a fundamental aspect of
these devices remains essentially unchanged. The efficient design of purely data-driven approaches using machine learning algorithms,
LiBs requires a fundamental understanding of the key physical for instance. P2D models are limited, however, by the user`s access
phenomena, and mathematical models encapsulate the interactions to an extensive list of input parameters describing the internal
between these phenomena within the complex structure of the components of the system in terms of design and geometry,
device. transport, and kinetics properties.9
In this context, accurate physics-based models of battery perfor- Extracting the parameters and functions required by the DFN
mance are extremely valuable and have the potential to yield model is an expensive and time-consuming task but nonetheless
significant competitive advantage to battery developers with an necessary for full physics-based simulations. Studies that conduct
active R&D program. The seminal works of Doyle, Fuller and such parameter estimation can be divided into two broad groups:
Newman in the 90ʼs1–3 led to the development of thermodynamically those that assume linear diffusivity of lithium-ion transport in the
consistent pseudo-two dimensional (P2D) battery models. At the electrode materials (see, for example,10–17) and those that assume a
battery pack scale, or even that of a cylindrical or a pouch cell, nonlinear diffusion law in the electrode materials (see, for
phenomenological equivalent circuit models (EQC)4 are often used example,18,19). Adopting the former approach leads to a relatively
(instead of physics-based models) because of the high computational simple parametrization problem. However, it cannot be expected that
cost of simulating multiple copies of the P2D model in a thermally the DFN (thus parametrised) will agree well with the experiment
heterogeneous three-dimensional structure. However, these phenom- across the full spectrum of battery operation, simply because lithium
enological models often termed “black boxes”, cannot be directly transport in most electrode materials is highly nonlinear. Some
related to the chemistry occurring within the battery micro-structure authors try to overcome this limitation by introducing an element of
and lead to increased errors especially at the extremes of state-of- non-physical fitting; thus, for example,11 uses the concept of a
charge (SoC).5 They are thus restricted to a narrow range of current current dependent electrode particle radius while17 uses current
draws and, furthermore, do not allow the possibility of exploring dependent weighting factors. Despite some success achieved by
how changes to the cell design affect overall battery performance. adopting these strategies, the optimal parametrization techniques
The P2D model, which we hereafter referred to as the Doyle-Fuller- require that lithium diffusivity in the electrode materials is quantified
Newman (DFN) model, is widely employed in commercial tool- as a function of local lithium concentration. This is usually achieved
boxes such as COMSOL Multiphysics or Dassault’s Dymola soft- by performing galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT)
ware and solves the governing equations with algorithms that are or electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) (see, for example,
Ecker et al.19), potentiostatic intermittent titration technique (see, for
example, Oca et al.18), or by applying the Randle‘s Sevick equation
z
E-mail: a.zulke@lancaster.ac.uk on cyclic voltammetry data obtained at different sweep rates. The
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
linear diffusivity approximation can work well without ad-hoc non- microscopy data. DFN is a multiscale modelling framework that
physical fitting procedures but only where comparison is made to a circumvents some of these difficulties by posing the model on
restricted range of the batteries state of charge, for example for drive representative (usually spherical) electrode particles and using an
cycles which operate in a constrained region (e.g.10,13,16). averaged (or homogenised) representation of the electrolyte. The
Physics-based modelling has often been claimed to be “too microscale of this multiscale model is associated with lithium
computationally expensive”, and therefore impractical, for battery transport taking place within individual electrode particles while
management systems (BMS). However, the recent development of the macroscale is associated with transport processes taking place on
linear scaling algorithms, with compiled language and cloud-based the cell scale, in particular in the electrolyte. The complexity of the
data management to solve the DFN model means that this is no pore geometry is retained in the multi-scale equations in the form of
longer true. In this context, we mention the package DandeLiion20,21 “effective” coefficients which are determined by the microstructure.
which overcomes the aforementioned limitations and provides a In the original papers by Newman and coworkers,1–3 the multi-scale
standalone solution to solve the DFN model in a user-friendly way. system was posited on an ad-hoc basis, but the model equations have
Besides, P2D models can be potentially combined with other since been systematically derived from much more rigorous argu-
modelling techniques creating corrugated models of even faster ments in asymptotic homogenisation.26,27 In the remainder of this
performance. The research has seen substantially increased interest Section we shall outline the model and briefly discuss the physical
for the hybridisation of modelling techniques since physics-based principles that underpin each of the equations.
models are known to improve accuracy and do not require large data
pools, ultimately yielding decreased degradation rates of the Macroscopic equations.—There are two important charge trans-
batteries with obvious financial and environmental implications.22 port processes that must be captured on the macroscopic scale,
It has been recently reported the coupling of P2D solvers to namely: (i) ionic conduction in the electrolyte, and (ii) electron
electrochemical observers in algorithms for state of charge and conduction in the solid network of electrode particles, binder, and
remaining useful life (SOC/RUL) , evidencing the enormous additives. The former process is captured in the following equations:
potential of physics-based modelling for the battery industry.23
The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to demonstrate how ∂c ∂N−
ϵl (x ) + = 0,
the DFN model parameters can be determined efficiently by ∂t ∂x
experiments conducted on a real cell; and, secondly, to show that ∂c j
solutions obtained from a DFN model parametrised in this fashion N− = − (x ) De (c) − (1 − t 0+)
∂x F
are capable of accurately predicting the cell’s dynamic behavior for in L 1 < x < L 4. [1]
different discharge protocols, including both constant current dis-
charges and full drive cycles, which encompass both fully charged
and fully discharged states of the battery. Our work thus extends that ∂j
= b (x ) jn ,
of Ecker et al.19,24 which performs a careful parametrisation but does ∂x
not make the comparison to full drive cycles. In order to accomplish ⎛ ∂Φ 2RT 1 − t 0+ ∂c ⎞
these goals we parametrised a 21700 cell composed of lithium- j = − (x ) κ (c ) ⎜ − ⎟
⎝ ∂x F c ∂x ⎠
nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide (NCA) as cathode and graphite-
silicon oxide (Gr-SiOx) as anode material and then used our in L 1 < x < L 4, [ 2]
parameter set in DandeLiion to make predictions of galvanostatic
and drive-cycle discharges. The accuracy of the parametrised model in which c is the concentration of both the positive lithium and
is quantified via the absolute differences between simulated and negative anions, j is the (averaged) ionic current density, jn is the
experimentally measured voltage profiles during discharge. To our transfer current density (from electrode material to electrolyte per
knowledge, no other DFN parametrisation of a complete NCA/Gr- unit surface area of electrode material), Φ is the electrolyte potential
SiOx system exists in the literature, despite these batteries being measured with respect to a lithium reference electrode and N− is the
widely employed in the automotive sector, e.g. on Tesla’s model 3 flux of the negatively charged anions. Our choice to work with N− is
cars.25 We also discuss the main approximations made in our model motivated by the fact that anions do not undergo reactions and
and introduce a simplified experimental workflow for the required therefore the anion conservation equation requires no source/sink
parametrisation process. By providing relevant data and a set of terms as would be the case for the Li-ion conservation equation; the
comprehensive guidelines on the parametrisation and usage of resulting PDEs are thus more readily discretised, using a finite
DandeLiion, we hope to catalyse the widespread use of electro- element method, so as to ensure no artificial loss of lithium occurs in
chemical models in both academic research and industry alike. the cell. We note that the DFN model is often stated in an equivalent
form in terms of N+, the flux of Li+ ions. The parameters ϵl, , b, t0+
and F are the electrolyte volume fraction, the inverse MacMullin
The DFN Model
number, the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of the
The internal structure of LiB electrodes are intricate and the electrode particles (i.e. the reactive surface area of electrode particles
processes that allow them to store, and release, energy effectively per unit volume of electrode), the transference number and
comprises of various length scales. As shown in Fig. 1, both the Faraday’s constant, respectively. In addition, the functions De(c)
anode and cathode are comprised of relatively small (∼10−6 m) and κ(c) are the electrolyte diffusivity and the electrolyte conduc-
electrode particles bound together by a polymer binder network, into tivity, respectively. Notably ϵl, and b are effective coefficients that
which carbon black particles are embedded to improve their are determined by the properties of the microstructure. Thus, for
electrical conductivity. The resulting porous material (comprised instance, more tortuous microscale geometries lead to smaller values
of electrode particles and binder) is bathed by a liquid electrolyte. of which captures the retardation of the transport process caused
Both electrodes have typical thicknesses on the order of ∼10−4 m, by the tortuosity of the electrolyte paths. Physically, (1a) is a
and are therefore many times wider than the dimensions of the conservation equation for anions whilst (1b) is a constitutive
electrode particles that are incorporated into their structure, which equation for the anions flux N−. Moreover, (2a) is a charge
have typical diameters of a few microns or less. Obtaining solutions conservation equation within the electrolyte while (2b) is the
to partial differential equations posed on a geometry with such constitutive equation for the electrolyte current density, which, in
disparate length scales is computationally expensive and, even the electrolyte, plays an analogous role to Ohm’s Law.
where this is possible, is hindered by the difficulty in obtaining a Electron conduction in the solid parts of the electrode matrices
precise specification of the geometry of the electrode structure from are modelled by charge conservation equations and Ohm’s Law
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
⎪ sinh
⎪
⎪
( )
F η
2RT
a
in L 1 ⩽ x < L 2 , where I is the current leaving/entering the cell and A is the area of
the contact between the anode/cathode and the current collector.
jn = ⎨ 0 in L 2 < x < L 3, [5]
⎪ 12 1 2 max 12
⎪ 2Fk c c (cc∣r = Rc ) (cc − cc∣r = Rc ) Microscopic equations and boundary conditions.—The inter-
⎪ facial current density jn depends strongly on the concentration of Li
( )
Fη
⎪ sinh 2RTc in L 3 ⩽ x < L 4,
⎩ on the surface of the electrode particles necessitating that at every
location in the macroscopic dimension, x, we solve an appropriate
transport model for the Li within the particles. The transport within
ηa = Φa − Φ − Ueq, a (ca∣r = Ra ),
the particles occurs on a much smaller microscopic scale and we
ηc = Φc − Φ − Ueq, c (cc∣r = Rc ), [6] denote radial position within the particle by r. There is considerable
debate about the most appropriate equations for describing solid-
where R is the universal gas constant, T is absolute temperature, ka is state transport. In the original papers by Newman and coworkers1–3 a
the reaction rate constant in the anode,ca is the concentration of Li linear (Fickian) diffusion model was assumed, but since most
within the anode material, camax is the maximum concentration of sophisticated models, including Cahn-Hilliard,28–31 and nonlinear
lithium within the anode material and we assume that the anode diffusion models32 have all been proposed. Here we opt to take the
particles are spherical with radius Ra. The overpotential and latter approach and use a nonlinear diffusion equation noting that
equilibrium overpotential of the anode particles are denoted by ηa multiple studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of this model in
and Ueq,a respectively. Notably, the condition in which ηa = 0 is fitting experimental trends.33 Here we opt for the very simplest
equivalent to equality between the electrochemical potential of a microscopic model by assuming that all particles in the anode (or
lithium-ion in the anode material and that in the electrolyte and so, in cathode) are identical spheres of equal radius Ra (or Rc). We argue
turn, is equivalent to the Nernst equation as would be expected when that the SiOx particles in the anode occur in sufficiently small
the redox reaction has reached an equilibrium. This may, at first, numbers (4.6%) that they do not significantly undermine this
appear counter-intuitive until one recalls that Φ is not the (Maxwell) assumption. The microscopic equations and boundary conditions are
electric potential, in the electrolyte, but rather one measured with
respect to a lithium reference electrode, from which it follows that
FΦ is the electrochemical potential of a lithium-ion in the electro- ∂ca 1 ∂ ⎛ ∂c ⎞ ⎫
= 2 ⎜r 2Da (ca ) a ⎟ in 0 < r < R a ⎪
lyte. Counterparts to the anode variables in the cathode are denoted ∂t r ∂r ⎝ ∂r ⎠ ⎪
similarly, but with a subscript c. ⎬ in L 1 < x < L 2,
∂ca ∂ca jn ⎪
r=0 = 0, − D (
a ac ) = ⎪
Macroscopic boundary and interface conditions.—At the ex- ∂r ∂r r = R a F ⎭
tremities of the cell where the electrodes meet the current collectors [11]
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
Table I. The DFN model parameters: (*) measured, (**) fitted, (†) derived analytically, (‡) provided by the manufacturer. The subscript s should be
read as s = a in the anode and s = c in the cathode.
Properties Specification
a) Mass range as a percentage of the total cell mass (g/g) stated in the safety data sheet provided by the supplier.
Figure 2. Simplified experimental workflow used for parametrisation of the DFN model.
designed to obtain parameters to a sufficient degree of precision to present double-side coating of total geometric surface area of 1411.2
enable accurate simulations to be carried out over a wide range of cm2 and 1562.4 cm2, respectively. Anode electrode foils are
conditions, such as low-to-moderate constant current discharges and typically oversized with regards to the cathode in order to achieve
drive-cycles. the energy requirement and to limit risks of lithium plating. In this
way, anode-to-cathode ratios in commercial cells are always larger
Geometric parameters and physical characterization.—The first than 1. The anode region which has no cathode counter-part is often
stage of the parametrisation consists of the teardown of a represen- called overhang area, and lithium movement from/to these regions is
tative battery sample to reverse-engineer its materials properties. known to cause reversible capacity effects taking place at varied
One full cell was completely discharged to 2.5 V, using constant time scales.35
current at C/25, followed by disassembly in a dedicated argon-filled The chemistry of the active material in the cathode was
glove box with oxygen content and humidity below 1 ppm (MBraun, confirmed to be lithium nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide by using
MB-Unilab Plus SP). Tear down process begins with the careful powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD, Rigaku Smartlab, 9 Kw Cu source
removal of the top and insulation caps. Subsequently, the can is cut generator, λ ∼ 1.540 51 Å). The resulting diffraction spectrum is
with a pipe cutter near the groove. The top tabs are disconnected first displayed against a reference spectrum for NCA-80
and carefully peeled off using ceramic pliers. After peeling only, the (LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2) in the Supplementary Information Fig. S1
bottom tabs are disconnected. The electrode foils are then separated (available at stacks.iop.org/JES/168/120522/mmedia).
from the separator film by unfolding the jelly-roll, having their Results from elemental mapping using energy-dispersive X-ray
lengths and masses measured. In our sample, both cathode and anode spectroscopy(EDX)/scanning electron microscopy (SEM, JEOL
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
Figure 3. Conductivity (left) and ionic diffusivity (right) of the electrolyte using data provided from Refs. 19, 24.
Figure 4. Equilibrium potentials of graphite anode (top left) and NCA cathode (top right), and diffusion coefficients in solid particles as a function of full cell
SOC for anode (bottom left) and cathode (bottom right).
JSM-7800F) confirm that the anode is a mixture of graphite and crucible for thermal gravimetrical analysis (NETZSCH STA 449 F3
(SiOx). Association with other elements allows us to also infer about Jupiter) in N2/O2 from 0 to 1100 at 5 °C/min. The content of silicon
the presence of (LiPF6) and carboxymethylcellulose, commonly was estimated as 4.6% w/w from the residual mass at T > 800 °C
used as electrolyte salt and binder material, respectively. In order to inferred by TGA (Fig. S2). In terms of moles proportionality, this
estimate the (SiOx) content, 15 mg of the anode material was analysis suggests that there are around 45 moles of graphite (carbon
mechanically scraped off from the copper current collector foil, graphite, MM = 12 g/mol) to every mol of Si in the anode.
using a ceramic scalpel, and placed in a cleaned and tared Al2O3 Electrodes and separator thicknesses, in addition to particle sizes,
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
Figure 5. Constant current discharge curves for slow (C/24) discharge (a) and relatively fast (C/3.2) discharge (b). Simulation (red lines), experiment (black
lines), and relative deviation of simulation results from the experiment (orange lines) are shown in time.
were measured from cross-sectional and top-view scanning electron for anode, cathode and separator, respectively. We stress that these
microscopy (SEM). Representative micrographs are displayed in values should be cross-checked whenever possible, with values from
Fig. S3. Raw SEM images were turned into binary files and then porosimetry analysis.
processed using a conventional image processing software (ImageJ)
in order to obtain the distribution of particle sizes by choosing the Electrolyte.—The inverse MacMullin number of the the
proper sphericity level for the material being analysed. As the anode electrode matrix, which is the reciprocal of the MacMullin number
is a mixture of graphite and silicon oxide, the average diameter of and appears in the electrolyte equations, is estimated from the
the Gr-SiOx composites was chosen as the effective (average) anode Bruggeman relation.36 It is thus related to the volume fraction of
particle size assuming the Gr/SiOx particles ratio to be 95/5. As part electrolyte via
of the set of sensitive information about the product composition, we
do not have access to the exact proportion of binder conductive (x ) = (ϵl (x ))1.5.
carbon and active material present on the electrodes, so we assume a
commonly reported recipe, as 95% of active material for both Particle surface area per unit volume can then be derived
electrodes. The volume fraction of the electrolyte in the materials analytically assuming spherical particles with radius R(x),
was estimated from a combination of top-view and cross-sectional
SEM micrographs. This is accomplished by first identifying and b (x ) = 3 (1 − ϵl (x ))(R (x ))−1.
confirming the active particle content using the elemental mapping
information obtained from the EDX/SEM (Fig. S4). EDX/SEM can We note that the use of the Bruggeman relation to estimate the
only be used qualitatively to confirm which elements are present. MacMullin number −1 has been criticised, e.g. in Ref. 37, and in
Subsequently, a threshold range analysis is applied to the binary particular it tends to overestimate the real value of .
images to distinguish active particles from the background, to reveal It is experimentally inaccessible to harvest the electrolyte from
the porosity. Active content of NCA in the cathode inferred by three the full cell during the tear-down process. Conductivity and
different images shows results varying from 56 up to 73 percent. diffusivity in the electrolyte (Fig. 3) were obtained from the data
Image-based analysis for active content is not a quantitative method available in Ecker et al.19,24 by making the assumption that both
and should therefore be used only as an estimate. Using the average systems use electrolyte of very similar composition (in both cases
background from three different micro-graphs we estimate the LiPF6 dissolved in a carbonate-based solvent). The complete
volume fraction of electrolyte ϵl to be 0.2082, 0.2753, and 0.4914 electrolyte composition including the ratio of different solvents
Figure 6. Full cell GITT simulation in comparison with the measurements. Full discharge profile and the current.
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
Figure 7. Four fragments of the full discharge curve shown in Fig. 6. Beginning of discharge (a), middle of discharge (b), near the end of discharge (c), and at
the end of the experiment (d).
and additives are proprietary information, and therefore not avail- counter-electrode. All electrode and separator discs were cut using a
able. small manual die-cutting punching machine and assembled by
hydraulic crimping (TOB Energy). Fiberglass was used for the
Electrochemical characterization.—In order to extract data on separator and a battery-grade 1 M LiPF6, in ethylene carbonate/
the electrode thermodynamics, kinetics and transport properties we dimethyl carbonate (LP30, Sigma Aldrich), was employed as the
fabricated half-cells in coin cell configurations. This was accom- electrolyte. No solvent-based cleaning of the electrode foils was
plished by mechanically punching out anode and cathode circles of conducted in order to avoid removal of the solid electrolyte
diameter d = 19 mm from the electrode foils (double-side coating) interphase (SEI) and guarantee minimum interference with the
and re-assembling them into CR2032 cells with a metallic lithium resulting electrochemical response. After a 12-hour rest period for
Figure 8. A single pattern of the total current that mimics a drive cycle of an electric vehicle.
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
Figure 9. Drive cycle simulation full discharge curve in comparison with the experiment (a), and two zoomed-in fragments in the middle of discharge (b) and at
the very end of discharge (c). Orange line is the relative deviation of simulation results from the experiment.
proper wetting of the internal components, three consecutive cycles the first five, consecutive and reproducible cycles after conditioning
at C/12 (determined with regards to the active material mass) and of the coin cells were used in this work. We show the comparison of
25 °C were undertaken for conditioning between 0.05 V and 1.0 V pseudo-OCV curves obtained at the same very low C-rate and
for the anode half-cell and from 3.0 to 4.3 V for the cathode half- temperature for cathode, anode and full cell as Supplementary
cell. Pseudo-OCV curves were then obtained at sufficiently slow Material (Fig. S6). Analytical fits for the half-cell anode and cathode
constant current and at 25 °C. We confirm that a current rate of C/25 (dis)charge voltage profiles are obtained by averaging the pseudo-
yields near-equilibrium voltage profiles by comparing it with the OCV curves for charge and discharge and are provided in
curves at even slower rates, such as C/60 where identical electro- Supplementary Material as well (Eqs. SE1–SE2, Tables STI and
chemical signatures are obtained. (Fig. S5) The half-cells made from STII). We note that the hysteresis implied by the presence of
intact harvested material can be used for DFN parametrisation but different pseudo-OCVs for charge and discharge cannot be ex-
show poor cyclability, hence can only be used for a few cycles. Only plained by the nonlinear diffusion model for lithium transport in the
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
Table III. A summary of all heat dissipation terms used in the energy conservation law 16.
1 ̇
(elyte) Dissipative effects in the electrolyte 17
2 (a)
̇ part. The heat of mixing in the anode particles 18
3 (c)
̇ part. The heat of mixing in the cathode particles 19
4 (a) Ohmic dissipation in the solid parts of the anode L2 ∂Φa 2
̇ ohm (a)
̇ ohm = ∫ σa
L 1
( ) dx ∂x
5 (c) Ohmic dissipation in the solid parts of the cathode L4 ∂Φc 2
̇ ohm σ ( ) dx
(c)
̇ ohm = ∫ c ∂x
L 3
6 (a)
̇ pol. The polarization losses at the surfaces of the anode particles (a) L2
̇ pol. = ∫ b (x ) ηa j¯n dx
L
1
7 (c)
̇ pol. The polarization losses at the surfaces of the cathode particles (c) L4
̇ pol. = ∫ b (x ) ηc j¯n dx
L3
t
Figure 12. Cumulative electrical work (per unit area of cell) ∫ IV Adt as a percentage of Etot(t), the cumulative energy use (per unit area of cell), for (a)
0
constant current (C/3.2) discharge and (b) drive cycle simulation.
be close to its maximum Li concentration, reflecting the almost fully voltage limit, of 2.5 V, at which point it was considered fully
lithiated state. discharged. While the C/24 discharge takes 24 hours, and is clearly
Likewise, initial guesses for the Butler-Volmer reaction rate slow, the C/3.2 discharge would still be considered relatively fast
constants for delithiation in the anode and lithiation in the cathode when compared to the standard discharge current rate, of C/5
were taken from the COMSOL library of materials (Graphite (960 mA), which is found in the specification document (Table II).
MCBM: 2 × 10−11 and NCA-80: 5 × 10−10 m s−1; COMSOL Comparison of the simulation results against the experimental
Multiphysics 5.4) and adjusted by fitting the DFN model output to ones, for both constant current discharges, are made in Fig. 5. It can
the experimentally determined GITT curves. GITT consist in be seen that there is close agreement between the experimental and
monitoring the voltage response upon a series of short current simulated total voltages curves, except for right at the end of the
pulses followed by an extended relaxation phase, throughout the discharge this is less than 3%. The error is shown as the relative
entire charge or discharge event. Using the appropriate values of deviation on a voltage basis, calculated as
current pulses and relaxation times, resistances and diffusion (VSimulation − VExperiment)/VExperiment · 100% at each point in time.
coefficients can be estimated as a function of a discrete number of For both the slow and fast discharges we used an identical
SoCs.39,40 To reproduce a GITT experiment in DandeLiion,20 the parameter set, which is given in Table I. For the slow discharge
user has to provide the desired profile of current vs time, following a (Fig. 5, left plot), the relative error does not exceed 1%, except for
square wave pattern of current either constant or zero. This is the last few minutes of discharge when the battery is almost fully
demonstrated in Fig. 6 where the input current is shown as a purple discharged. For the relatively fast discharge (Fig. 5, full agreement is
solid line, and the total voltage obtained numerically (red line) is seen in the initial first hour of test. However, with time, the model
compared with the experimental data (black line). Four zoomed-in increasingly underestimates the voltage, although it is still within an
fragments of the plot are given in Fig. 7. Our results clearly show acceptable error range. As the model considers isothermal conditions
excellent agreement, confirming that the model still captures the throughout the whole experiment (here at 25 °C), these deviations
shape of the entire experimental total voltage profile as well as the almost certainly result from the temperature increase seen in the
shape of each voltage spike throughout the experiment from the middle-to-end of discharge; this is aggravated by increasing current.
beginning of discharge (Fig. 7, top left) till the end (Fig. 7, bottom Self-heating of the batteries is negligible for low current discharges,
right). e.g. C/24, but much more significant for higher rates, such as C/3.2.
This is true even when the experiment is carried out in a thermal
Results chamber,41 as shown in Fig. S7. To account for the variations in
temperature observed experimentally, we display the simulated
After populating our parameters table, we solve the DFN model
discharge profile for C/3.2 and at 30 °C, and significantly improved
to predict the cell voltage from (i) a constant current discharge under
agreement between prediction and experiment (see Fig. 5b, solid
different (slow and fast) discharge rates, and (ii) a drive cycle with a
lines).
highly non-uniform current distribution. In all cases the initial
conditions correspond to the fully pre-charged state (see initial
Drive cycles.—In contrast to laboratory measurements where a
concentrations of lithium in anode and cathode particle in Table I).
constant current, or series of constant current pulses, is typically
The predictions were then compared to experimental results and
applied to a cell in order to characterize its performance, the
used to estimate the absolute error between the cell voltage obtained
operation of batteries in real world applications gives rise to highly
from the fully parametrised model and that obtained from the
non-uniform loads. From an application point of view, it is
equivalent experimental full-cell discharge.
imperative that physics-based models can reproduce battery beha-
vior during practical operation say, for example, in electric vehicles.
Galvanostatic discharge.—We investigated constant current In order to illustrate the use of our parametrised model under
discharges at a low rate, C/24 (200 mA), and at a higher rate, conditions akin to that in the operation of an electric vehicle we
C/3.2 (1.5 A). The higher rate is the standard maximum discharge simulate battery performance when subject to a drive cycle load
rate given in the battery specification, which if exceeded will likely based on a standardized test protocol. Figure 8 shows the current
result in a shortened battery lifetime of below 1,000 charge/ patterns for a single-commute time based on a world harmonized
discharge cycles. In both simulation and experiment, the cell was light-duty vehicles test procedure (WLTP, class 3, version
discharged from full until the cell voltage dropped to the lower acceleration42), which we used to validate our model. Again, the
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2021 168 120522
This was based upon a careful assessment of the critical parameters 16. K. Uddin, S. Perera, W. D. Widanage, L. Somerville, and J. Marco, “Characterising
that most influence the cell’s behavior; these turn out to be those that lithium-ion battery degradation through the identification and tracking of electro-
chemical battery model parameters.” Batteries, 2, 13 (2016).
are related to its total capacity and its transport properties (e.g. 17. S. Santhanagopalan, Q. Guo, and R. E. White, “Parameter estimation and model
particle radius, electrode thicknesses, active material content and discrimination for a lithium-ion cell.” J. Electrochem. Soc., 154, A198 (2007).
diffusion coefficients). Finally, we remark that DandeLiion solver 18. L. Oca, E. Miguela, E. Agirrezabala, A. Herran, E. Gucciardi, L. Otaegui,
has the potential to be leveraged for on-board battery management E. Bekaert, A. Villaverde, and U. Iraola, “Physico-chemical parameter measure-
ment and model response evaluation for a pseudo-two-dimensional model of a
systems in electric vehicles and used to perform real-time computa- commercial lithium-ion battery.” Electrochimica Acta, 382, 138287 (2021).
tions, given its sub-second timescale resolution. 19. M. Ecker, T. K. D. Tran, P. Dechent, S. Käbitz, A. Warnecke, and D. U. Sauer,
“Parameterization of a physico-chemical model of a lithium-ion battery. I.
Acknowledgments Determination of parameters.” J. Electrochem. Soc., 162, A1836–48 (2015).
20. DandeLiion online simulation engine https://www.dandeliion.com/.
The authors were supported by the Faraday Institution Multi- 21. I. Korotkin, S. Sahu, S. E. J. O’Kane, G. Richardson, and J. M. Foster, “DandeLiion
Scale Modelling (MSM) project Grant number EP/S003053/1. We v1: An extremely fast solver for the Newman model of lithium-ion battery (dis)
are grateful for the help of Dr. Simon O’Kane in fitting data for the charge.” J. Electrochem. Soc., 168, 060544 (2021).
22. J. M. Reniers, G. Mulder, and D. A. Howey, “Unlocking extra value from grid
anode and electrolyte properties and Dr. Ferran Brosa-Planella for batteries using advanced models.” J. Power Sources, 487, 229355 (2021).
the discussions on effective diffusion coefficients. 23. A. Allam, E. Catenaro, and S. Onori, “Pushing the Envelope in Battery Estimation
Algorithms.” iScience, 23, 101847 (2020).
ORCID 24. M. Ecker, S. Käbitz, I. Laresgoiti, and D. U. Sauer, “Parameterization of a physico-
chemical model of a lithium-ion battery. II, Model validation.” J. Electrochem.
Alana Zülke https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2274-0002 Soc., 162, A1849 (2015).
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Jamie M. Foster https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6120-5734 K. Sun, “Degradation Mechanism of Ni-Enriched NCA Cathode for Lithium
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Mangayarkarasi Nagarathinam https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5485- 26. F. Ciucci and W. Lai, “Derivation of micro/macro lithium battery models from
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