Modeling discontinuous potential distributions using the finite volume method, and application to liquid metal batteries

Abstract

The electrical potential in a battery jumps at each electrode-electrolyte interface. We present a model for computing three-dimensional current and potential distributions, which accounts for such internal voltage jumps. Within the framework of the finite volume method we discretize the Laplace and gradient operators such that they account for internal jump boundary conditions. After implementing a simple battery model in OpenFOAM we validate it using an analytical test case, and show its capabilities by simulating the current distribution and discharge curve of a Li‖Bi liquid metal battery.