Development of Self-Discharge Point Visualization Technique inside Lithium-Ion Battery
Authors: Mizutani Takao , Kimura Kenjiro , Kimura Noriaki , Mima Yuki , Matsuda Seiju , Suzuki Shogo , Okada Hideaki , Nishimura Yutaro 
Published: July 2022

With the rapid spread of electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles in recent years, the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, which are the power sources of them, tends to increase.This means that the risk of ignition is further increased as represented by some fire accident case of an EV vehicle that had taken long time to extinguish, and thus eventually makes the requirement of safety management in the battery manufacturing process be expected stricter.To prevent ignition due to internal short circuit of battery, and eliminate a short-life battery product, we have been developing a technology to non-destructively visualize the self-discharged part inside the storage battery. In this technology, on the first, electric current is applied to the battery from external power source, and the leakage magnetic field that generated due to the internal electric current in the battery is sensed on outside of the battery. Next, the electric current density distribution inside the battery can be reconstructed and visualized three-dimensionally by using the spatial distribution of the measured magnetic field as the boundary condition and solving the inverse problem analytically.

To measure leakage magnetic field with high sensitivity, it is necessary to take steps against disturbances as like DC magnetic field derived from magnetism or magnetic materials (often Ni is used for the collector foil), and AC magnetic fields generated from external circuits. In this method, two steps are used in combination for detection sensitivity of the pico-tesla order;

(1) An AC current is applied to the battery, and the AC magnetic field generated in synchronization is phase-detected.

(2) Install a small coil near the sensor and generate a DC cancel magnetic field by feedback control.

By this method, it is possible to detect only the AC magnetic field corresponding to the applied current with high sensitivity in the linear operating region of the magnetic sensor. In actual detection of the leakage magnetic field, a DC voltage that balances with the output voltage of the battery is applied to the AC output of the AC current source connected to the battery so that the SOC of the storage battery is kept constant voltage. In addition to the above, the frequency of the AC output is usually set to 10 Hz or less to avoid the shielding effects of electrodes and the metallic package of the battery.By these steps and scanning two-dimensional of magnetic sensors or using a sensor array in which magnetic sensors are arranged two-dimensionally, the spatial distribution of the two-dimensional magnetic field outside the storage battery can be obtained. Since the sensor detects only one direction component of magnetic field, changing the direction of the sensor by 90 ° is needed.

On data processing, some realistic structural assumptions are required to solve the inverse problem.

(1) Defining that the plane parallel to the storage battery electrode plane is the XY plane, the Z component of the magnetic field vector is zero around the battery, and only X component and Y component remains as magnetic field vector components generated from internal current of the battery.

(2) The thickness of the battery is sufficiently smaller than the size of the battery in the plane direction, that is, the three-dimensional current in the battery is confined in the thin two-dimensional plane.

In the first step of the reconstruction, under the fact of (1), Laplace's equation is analytically solved in the "free space from the measurement surface to just above the electrode surface in the battery, without a magnetic source", and derive the two-dimensional magnetic field distribution directly above the electrode surface. In the next step, it is possible to obtain a three-dimensional current distribution inside the battery by analytically solving the Poisson-type equation and the electric current continuity equation under the realistic structural assumption of (2) with first calculation result as the boundary condition.

In the presentation, we will introduce in detail the experiment and data processing for identifying the self-discharge point with this technology, including examples of visualizing the magnetic field distribution and current density distribution inside a battery after aging test.