Li-ion battery charge transfer stability studies with direct current impedance spectroscopy

Abstract

The safety of lithium-ion batteries is closely related to the charge transfer process inside the battery. With the rapid increase in battery usage, battery safety issues have become increasingly prominent. Due to technical limitations, the current battery thermal failure management system cannot realize risk early warning. Charge transfer resistance (Rct) is a macroscopic parameter characterizing the battery transport process, which can be detected by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Due to the high cost of EIS test equipment and high signal-to-noise ratio requirements, it is still not applicable to electric vehicles. In addition, Rct is affected by ambient temperature and battery aging, which brings challenges to online safety diagnosis. Here we propose a method to obtain the activation energy of a battery using direct current impedance spectroscopy (DCIS), which enables the stability diagnosis of the charge transport process. DCIS is a time-domain impedance spectroscopy technique. It uses the time constant characteristic of the internal resistor–capacitor network to detect battery parameters. Activation energy is the energy barrier for lithium-ions to cross the electrode/electrolyte interface and can indicate the stability of the charge transport process. Since activation energy is a microscopic parameter, it is not affected by temperature and aging, which is beneficial for battery safety diagnosis. The experimental results show that the charge transfer process of the sample cells with a state of health (SOH) greater than 80% is stable. When the SOH is less than 80%, the activation energy drops rapidly from 0.55 eV to 0.16 eV, indicating an increased risk of thermal runaway. Since DCIS supports online detection, it provides an option for safety diagnosis of electric vehicle batteries.