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Non-destructive techniques capable of tracking commercial battery properties under realistic conditions have unlocked chemical, thermal and mechanical data with the potential to accelerate and optimize the development and utilization strategies of lithium-ion devices, both new and used.
Before use, battery assembly wetting and formation cycles should be carefully monitored using imaging or advanced electrochemical techniques to reduce the scrap rate. This could be achieved using tomography, acoustic imaging or spectroscopic characterization.
During use, thermal and mechanical phenomena at the cell level could contribute to enhance the battery management system (BMS). In this context, electrical and optical sensors offer large versatility of shape, sensitivity and accuracy.
After use, accurate evaluation of battery degradation at the cell level and determination of their true end-of-life status is crucial for second-life applications. To preserve battery integrity, acoustic and thermographic imaging appear promising techniques.
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
One technique being pursued by automakers and battery developers to extend lifetime is ‘derating’, where a battery is operated more conservatively in certain situations to reduce degradation. An example of derating is to slow the rate of charging when the battery nears its maximum storage capacity, which limits the potential damage to the cells.
Everything has a trade-off in battery engineering, says Dr Billy Wu, a senior lecturer in electrochemical engineering at Imperial College London, but with a deeper understanding of physics we can get closer to the optimum.
“So, the question is where do you sit on that trade-off curve? How much do you compromise performance for longevity? We’ve looked at how you can achieve maximum performance without pushing a battery too far, preventing degradation.”
A Faraday Institution Industry Fellowship between Imperial College London and WAE (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering), an Oxfordshire-based technology and engineering services business, has investigated the effectiveness of various derating approaches.
The collaboration completed a critical review of derating methods and produced a valuable go-to resource for a wide range of organisations – automakers, battery developers, grid energy storage system operators, and developers of consumer electronics – seeking to exploit the considerable potential of the technique.
Derating is appealing because it can be implemented at minimal cost, applied via software updates to existing EV fleets, and does not influence system reliability or generate additional safety issues.
Batteries need to be treated differently depending on their chemistry and variables such as temperature and age, however. A balance needs to be struck in order not to overly derate (for example, significantly reducing the ability of the vehicle to accelerate, or lengthening the time it takes to charge the battery), which would negatively impact customer satisfaction. Considerable uncertainties remain around optimal derating approaches, and this is complicated by the diversity of influencing factors.
The work found that the process of designing any control strategy requires a balance between ‘hard’ derate limits that maximise performance within safety constraints, and ‘soft’ limits that promote enhanced lifetime. The partnership’s suggested approach is to use emerging techniques, such as machine learning-based diagnostic and prognostic methods, and improved sensors and telematics, to develop a ‘dynamic hybrid derating framework’ where, with battery aging, operating limits would be gradually narrowed to circumvent fast degradation.
Physics-based modelling and sensitivity analysis would be used as a guide to determine how and when to derate operating parameters. This could ultimately lead to the development of battery digital twins, which fuse real-time data with physically relevant models, as outlined in a recent perspectives paper in Joule.
The results of the study on derating strategies were published in the Journal of Power Sources. The paper classifies the various derating methods, quantifies their benefits, and identifies challenges with their implementation. It evaluates the derating approaches being adopted by leading companies in the field, and provides insights on future development directions and choice of derating strategies for optimum battery health.
“We have highlighted the significant potential for extending battery lifetime by employing smart, health-adaptive control strategies to control a battery as it ages to maximise its lifetime. Understanding batteries better is key to achieving a sustainable net zero world – this means understanding the sensitivity of battery usage to long term performance, reliability and safety characteristics,” said Tim Engstrom, technical lead for Elysia, WAE’s recently-launched battery intelligence arm, and one of the paper’s authors.
“EVs are expensive and part of the reason for this is because the batteries are over-engineered – they’re bigger than they need to be. By treating batteries better, we can make them last a lot longer, which completely transforms the business case.”
Co-author Dr Wu added: “Batteries degrade over their lifetimes, just like people. As we age, we may be less physically fit than when we were younger and could endure more strenuous activity without damaging our bodies. We’ve highlighted ways we can extend battery lifetime in relation to how we use them as they age.
“For your average car buyer, one of the most important factors is how fast your car depreciates – battery life comes into this, and increased battery life is a game changer for companies like fleet operators looking to switch to EVs. Improving battery life by say 50% would have a huge operational and financial impact on these businesses.”
“Lots of techniques work in the lab but we need to see how they work in reality – for example, we don’t yet know how to determine the operating limits in each aging stage,” said Dr Wu. “No unified derating method exists for all battery types – the approach needs to be adapted for each battery chemistry, design, application and acceptable perceptible impact on the customer.”
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