Modeling and analysis of LiFePO4/Carbon battery considering two-phase transition during galvanostatic charging/discharging

Batteries with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode and carbon anode have shown various advantages over those with other chemistries, but the plateau and path dependence caused by the two-phase transition taking place during charging and discharging make it difficult to estimate the states of battery. Thus, based on electrochemical principles we propose a new reduced order model that has been validated against experimental data obtained during galvanostatic charging/discharging. The mechanism of the two-phase transition during lithiation and delithiation in LFP particles is approximated using a shrinking corewith a moving interface between the two phases and is described by modified diffusion equations that take into account multiple layers formed within LFP particles. The shrinking core model is integrated into a cell model developed previously, which is used to analyze the path dependence at different load profiles. The results show that the model is capable of representing the characteristics of the plateau and path dependence. Particularly, the available charge at a certain State of Charge (SOC) varies dependent upon paths to reach the SOC. When an initial SOC is reached by discharging, the cell can accept more charges during charging, while when an initial SOC is reached by charging, more charge will be available during discharging. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.