Ignas Andriunas
Assessing reuse capabilities of lithium ion batteries.
Email: i.andriunas1@ncl.ac.uk
Supervisors
Project description
Lithium-ion batteries degrade over their life. They are often discarded from EVs when their available capacity drops below 80% of the initial capacity. This is a lot of energy not being used.
We are studying the degradation that these batteries go through over their first lifetime. We will use this data to show how they can be reused beyond their first life.
It is not trivial to determine if a battery is suitable for reuse. There are many techniques for determining lumped parameters of a battery. These include overall impedance, charge acceptance and capacity. But they are not enough to determine the state-of-health of a battery.
Thermal imaging can be a very useful tool to determine exactly how the battery has degraded. Degradation impacts the temperature maps of a battery during charging/discharging/rest. It should be possible to correlate exactly how the battery degraded to the thermal map.
Based on the thermal map at the end of the battery’s first life (80% capacity) it should be possible to predict how a battery will behave when reused. We will base this on the second life application (below 80% capacity use).
This investigation could have many applications, including:
- the grid for peak shaving
- homes for personal energy storage
- places that are far away from any grid connection
This investigation requires accurate predictions of the electrochemistry as well as thermodynamics involved. Local effects are most important as we base the work around thermal imaging.
Interests
Lithium-ion batteries, batteries, electrochemistry, electrical and thermo-fluid engineering, sustainable development, renewable energy, recycling.
Qualifications
- BEng Hons 1st Class Mechanical Engineering, Newcastle University (2019).