Effects of Non-Uniform Temperature Distribution on Degradation of Lithium-Ion Cells

Abstract

Lithium-ion cells degrade much faster at temperatures higher than 25 °C mainly due to accelerated solid-electrolyte interface (SEI) growth in anode and degeneration of cathode [1, 2]. It is also known that temperature distributions in lithium-ion cells are not uniform [3] due to very low thermal conductivity of battery materials. The non-uniform temperature distributions could cause non-uniform degradation, thus exacerbating the thermal degradation problem, especially for large-format lithium-ion cells during high power operation. The effects of non-uniform temperature distributions on degradation of lithium-ion cells will be investigated and progress will be presented.