Interrelationships among Adjustable Design Parameters and Rate Performance of Porous Electrodes in Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

A combination of experiments and physics-based modeling is used to highlight the complex interaction among the adjustable design parameters of porous electrodes in determining the capacity and rate performance of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). A series of 52 LiMn2O4 electrodes are prepared with loading and porosity in the range of 10 to 30 mg cm−2 and 0.2 to 0.5, respectively, and cycled at different C-rates in front of Li. A detailed polarization analysis of the 96 discharge profiles points to the absence of any ubiquitous sharp and universal correlation between the lumped macroscopic indexes such as the electrode thickness and the battery performance. The results call for a careful attention to the nonlinear response of the LIBs to the design variations and the significance of big data analysis to reveal the peculiar interrelationships between the battery performance and the detailed features of the electrodes such as the configuration and spatial distribution of the (in)active particles.