Advanced Sensing and Diagnostics

Optimal management and diagnosis of electrochemical storage systems requires a precise understanding of the electrochemical state of the many constituent cells and how they will respond to various electrical demands. Such an understanding is challenging to obtain due to the complex nature of electrochemical cells, which comprise heterogeneous microstructured electrodes of polydisperse active materials with multiple solid-solid and solid-liquid interfaces at which essential electrochemical functions occur. As cells degrade, microstructures and electrochemical properties evolve in non-trivial ways, further complicating detailed analysis of the state of individual cells, especially when only current and voltage measurements are used. Indeed the unpredictable degradation of cells makes state-of-charge diagnosis in portable electronics notoriously difficult as they age. StorageX approaches this problem through the development of advanced sensing and diagnostic tools (hardware and software) to improve the accuracy with which cells can be diagnosed and appropriately managed in the field. StorageX faculty work in the following areas:

• Design and implementation of advanced sensing hardware for state of charge and state of health diagnosis, for example:
  • Multimodal sensing network of acoustic-ultrasonic actuators & sensors for characterization of state-of-charge and state-of-health at the cell level
  • Smart separators that can act as reference electrodes for electrode-specific in situ electrochemical characterization
  • In-cell temperature sensors to accurately measure the significantly higher temperature inside the battery cell compared to the external temperature
  • In-cell pressure sensing provide additional information on electrochemical states and failure indicatiors
• Development of data-driven tools using the data streams from such hardware, including lifetime prediction and optimization of cycling protocols