Fast-charging to a partial state of charge in lithium-ion batteries: A comparative ageing study

At electric vehicle fast-charging stations, it is generally recommended to avoid charging beyond ∼80% State-of-Charge (SOC) since topping-off to full capacity disproportionately increases the charging time. This necessitates studying its long-term impact compared to slower rate charging to full capacity typical of home or residential charging. Here we present the long-term ageing effects on commercial 18650 NMC-LMO/graphite cell cycled between 2.6-4.2 V at three different charging protocols: 1.5 C-rate fast-partial charging (to 82.5% SOC), 0.5 C-rate slow standard charging without or with a constant-voltage step (to 93% or 100% SOC). Quantitative discharge-curve and postmortem analyses are used to evaluate ageing. The results show that ageing rate increases in the order: fast-partial charging < standard charging < standard charging with constant-voltage period, indicating that higher SOC-range near full capacity is more detrimental to battery life than fast-charging. The capacity fade is totally dominated by cyclable-lithium loss. The ∼8% NMC-LMO active material loss has negligible impact on the cell capacity fade due to the electrodes excess material in the fresh cell and its moderate loss rate with ageing compared to the cyclable-lithium. Similar ageing modes in terms of capacity fade and impedance rise are found irrespective of the charging protocol.

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