Effects of Diffusive Charge Transfer and Salt Concentration Gradient in Electrolyte on Li-ion Battery Energy and Power Densities

•The LIB model is simplified for a range of cell designs and operating conditions.•Ragone plots are employed to estimate the accuracy of the simplified model.•Diffusion contribution in ion transfer in electrolyte is less significant than the migration.•Diffusive ion transfer can be neglected in most LIB designs and operating conditions.•Salt concentration gradient can be neglected in some LIB designs and operating conditions.

The simulation of lithium-ion batteries based on a fundamental multi-physicochemical model requires extensive computational resources and remains sluggish for real-time or battery pack analysis applications. In these applications, simplification of the model is required to reduce computational costs while maintaining the model accuracy in estimation of one or more performance parameters. In this study, the effects of neglecting the lithium-ion diffusive charge transfer and the salt concentration gradient in electrolyte on the model accuracy are investigated. The results indicate the feasibility of simplifying the model for a range of cell designs and discharge rates without sacrificing the preciseness of the cell energy and power density predictions.

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