Thermal behavior and electrochemical heat generation in a commercial 40 Ah lithium ion pouch cell

Quantitative data on the thermal behavior of lithium ion batteries under charging and discharging conditions are essential for designing thermal management systems and improving battery safety. In this work, commercial 40 Ah lithium ion pouch cells with Li(Ni1/3Mn1/3Co1/3)O2 cathodes were tested under isoperibolic and adiabatic conditions in an Accelerating Rate Calorimeter at different charging/discharging currents from 5 A to 40 A. Adiabatic tests simulate the worst-case scenario of a battery pack without cooling. For charging and discharging an overall exothermic behavior was found and a total temperature increase for one half cycle between 3 and 11 K. Isoperibolic tests simulate a single cell under constant environmental temperature. Here an exothermic behavior for discharging and an endothermic behavior for charging were observed. To transfer the measured temperature changes into heat data, the effective specific heat capacity and the heat transfer coefficient were determined. For the first time the heat generation data for a large format pouch cell have been determined using both isoperibolic and adiabatic conditions. These data were compared with the total heat data calculated as the sum of reversible and irreversible heat that were measured by potentiometric and current interruption techniques respectively. A good agreement was found between all three heat generation determination methods.