Patent Description:
"How to charge a battery faster?" is a question which was not fully answered for several decades since the inception of battery storage devices. More importantly charging a lithium-ion battery faster has become a critical concern due the rapid and massive use of mobile device technologies and the increasing demand on the electric vehicles (EVs) and plugin electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) in recent years due to the urgency to curb the air pollution caused by petroleum-dominant vehicles. Therefore, a fast charging solution for a Lithium-Ion battery in today's world is a billion-dollar worth innovation.

<CIT> discloses a method for charging an electrochemical device, such as a secondary electrochemical cell, providing charging parameters, such as time varying charging voltages and charging currents, that take into consideration important electrochemical cell properties that impact device performance, cycling and lifetime, such as the state of health of an electrochemical cell, and/or the health and/or composition of specific system components such as anode, cathode, and electrolyte and/or the cycle history of the electrochemical cell (e.g., cycle number, etc.).

The aim of the present invention is to propose a new Non-Linear Voltammetry (NLV)-based charging protocol which allows fast charging for batteries with improved performances compared to present constant current constant voltage (CCCV) fast charging technologies.

As it will appear obvious to the Person Skilled in the Art the NLV-based charging protocol of this invention can be applied in combination with other fast charging protocols such as with Constant Current protocol (CC), Constant Current Constant Voltage protocol (CCCV) and with the Cascade Pulse Charging Protocol described in <CIT>.

According to the invention, a method for charging a battery system is provided, as defined by the independent claim <NUM>.

According to another aspect of the invention, a battery charging system is provided, as defined by the independent claim <NUM>.

The battery system can comprise one cell or of a multi-cell system, and can be arranged in series and/or in parallel cell configuration.

The voltage of a cell is for example comprised between 2V and 5V, and the charging current in a cell can be comprised between <NUM> and 10C (nC rate is defined as the constant charging current to enable a full charging time in <MAT> hour(s), i. under 10C rate the charging time is <MAT>).

The cell temperature T can be comprised between -<NUM> and +<NUM> and the charging time tch from <NUM>% SOC to <NUM>% SOC is comprised between <NUM> minutes and <NUM> hours. The SOC can be comprised between <NUM>% and <NUM>% and the cycle number is <NUM>≤n≤<NUM>.

A Non-Linear Voltammetry (NLV)-based adaptive charging protocol (ACP) for fast charging lithium-ion battery was developed to charge a battery in about <NUM> minutes time. This is a combination of two fast charging methods which can be applied to any type of battery. It works as memory-less charging model as well as a memory-based charging model. If the historical data about the battery chemistry is available, this protocol automatically gets adjusted to make use of them to provide the best charging performance.

If it happens to charge a random battery, without any historic or specific data, a quick learning model about its ΔSOC will be fair enough to charge it quickly and safely. Not only that, it will also consider about the user's requirements and some system requirements (as and when it detects them) when adjusting its protocol for charging. Therefore, this can also be considered as a universal protocol to fast charging batteries.

Using this method, a battery can be fully charged in about <NUM> mins time. In average cases, it will charge the battery in about <NUM>-<NUM> minutes time. Through a cyclic test, it has proven that this charging protocol hasn't largely impacted on the capacity fading. Further, this could be a model for fast-charging any type of battery as the basis of this protocol is to let the battery charge with its' own favorable current at any point of time, depending on its ΔSOC and SOH.

Adaptive charging, Non-Linear Voltage changing, and Relaxation are the key cornerstones of this protocol. Adaptive charging allows the system to balance the charging based on the user's time requirements, required charge capacity and the SOC and SOH of the battery. Non-linearly changing the voltage coupled with a suitable relaxation pattern allows this method to gain the maximum charge capacity without straining the battery. As the cell impedance increases toward the end-of-discharge (EOD) [<NUM>], the protocol uses either a high-speed NLV steps or a configurable constant current (CC) charge at the starting SOC. If the system couldn't reach the expected charge at the end of the NLV based charging, the adaptive protocol will decide whether to get use of another CC charge to gain the balance capacity. Following summarizes the NLV charging:.

These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regards to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings wherein:.

This adaptive charging protocol (ACP) is based on non-linear voltammetry (NLV) based control over the period of charging a battery. It allows the battery to charge at an acceptable Current (Amps) amount at different Voltage levels based on its own state of health (SOH) and state of charge (SOC). Therefore, the amount of Current draws into the battery is never controlled or imposed by this protocol at any time.

Even it is predictable that a battery can be charged (more than <NUM>%) in less than a <NUM> mins using this method, it may get elongated or shorten based on the health (SOH) of the battery at the time of charging. It also assures better safety compared to the other fast charging methods [<NUM>,<NUM>,<NUM>] which are mostly imposing the High-Current (I) in different patterns/wave forms. So, most importantly this ACP method does not strain the battery by drawing a large fixed-load of electrons through the cells without taking its health into consideration.

The equilibrium in kinetics of battery-particle dynamics, such as lithiation/ de-lithiation (intercalation/ de-intercalation), shooting/floating the ions/electrons through the solvents & separators, transporting charge against the internal impedance (IR) etc. [<NUM>,<NUM>], determine how healthy the battery is? / how much of a Current can be taken/given by the battery-system at a time, during charging/ discharging? We believe that this equilibrium can be expressed as a relationship between the "Rate of the change, in Current ( <MAT>)" and the "Rate of the change, in Voltage ( <MAT>)". Therefore, the following relationship was used in forming up this protocol: <MAT> where:.

Kn :  "K-value" is a constant for a certain period during charging. n >= <NUM>
<MAT> (volts/ secs):  This is the rate of the change of Voltage (V) during the charging process [(Vstep-end- Vstep-start)/ Step-Time Duration]. <MAT> (mA/ secs):  This is the absolute value of the rate of the change of Current (I) during the charging process. α :  This is an adjustable coefficient <NUM>< α <<NUM> and it makes the room for this equation to seek the non- linear relations between Current & Voltage based on different types of battery. This will also be trained by the system to best suit the charging process. Further, the relationship for α = <NUM> can be simplified as: <MAT>.

From the literature of Li-ion batteries, it is evident that the chemistries of the battery provide inherent characteristics on the voltage profiles. Within certain lower voltages (with low SOC), the cells tempt to draw a very low Current (due to high impedance) whereas in higher voltages (high SOC with lower polarization) the potential of drawing High Current is remarkably high [<NUM>]. Some cells have a very narrow frame of a Voltage-range where these High Currents could be tolerated. So, the fast charging should be applied to keep the battery in these ranges for a longer time, as much as possible, until the expected capacity (as much capacity as possible before the tolerable current drops below a certain lower level which would elongate the total charge time) is gained during the charging process.

All examples given below are related to lithium ion batteries. However, ACP applies to all types of rechargeable batteries including, and not limited to Solid State Lithium, NiMH, NiCd, LAB, alkaline cells, NaS, NaNiCh, redox flow (ZnBr, VRB),.

The "ACP on NLV" is meant for an Adaptive Charging Protocol (ACP) based on Non-Linear Voltammetry (NLV) charging. It is adaptive as the protocol adapts to several user-driven and system/battery-driven factors to adjust its own charging profile to better response to the given charging requirements. The user expected charging time (duration), expected percentage of charge (<NUM>%, <NUM>% or <NUM>% etc.), possible relaxation time and initial state of charge (SOC) are some of the user driven factors of the adaptation process. Identifying current SOC has also designed to be processed automatically using the entropy and enthalpy-based method which comes as a system/battery driven factor as well. The state of the health (SOH), stated (nominal) capacity, safety voltage range, available accuracy of voltage control and polarization profile of the battery are some of the automatically detected/ system driven factors.

During NLV charging, the battery cell set to a certain voltage (CV) which is non-linearly changing and gradually increasing at every step. Therefore, the battery is charged based on Non-Linear-Voltage (NLV) for a period over a series of quick charging steps.

During each of these steps, the cell draws a certain amount of Current based on both of its State of Charge (SOC) and State of Health (SOH) at the very specific time. Then the Current will gradually drop down. How fast the current drops at a certain step provides some clue on how good or bad the battery would like to stay in that NLV step. This way, one can allocate more step-time whenever the battery is keen to draw more Current, and less step-time when it attempts to drastically drop its drawing Current.

After every step, a very short relaxation with zero (<NUM>) Current is applied to the system to stabilize with its new charge and thus the OCV will drops to its stable (or almost stable) level. This creates a better chance [<NUM>,<NUM>] for the next NLV charge-step to gain the optimal Current based on its status without imposing a high current beforehand. In this way, the protocol trains the cell to be stable and healthy (as much as possible, also without wasting much time on too long relaxation) after every step and better prepare it for the next step to gain more current than if it was done without the relaxation. But, if the amount of current-drop is not significant for a certain step, the system allows to stay longer in that step without moving to the next step. In this case, the rate of current-drop and a maximum allowed time for such continuation of a step is monitored to decide the time to move to the next step.

The system decides the "maximum allowed time for such continuation of a step" based on adaptation parameters. So, whenever a rapid drop of the current or exceeding of the "maximum allowed time for a step" is detected, the system moves to the next charging step. Therefore, the actual time it takes for a full-charge depends on both the SOC and SOH of the battery.

Further, the charging system takes three parameters to determine the end of charging. First, if the battery is fully charged based on the stated and gained capacities. The Second is if the maximum-target- end-voltage is reached. The "target-end-voltage" is adjusted automatically by the system based on the polarization data of the relevant battery type/chemistry. The Third, and optional, factor is a self-learning model of the charging profile to determine the state of charge based on the real-time parameters at the time (by examining for a certain window of time) of charging.

<FIG> shows a profile of Current and Voltage during the NLV charging process. Some steps have taken longer time staying in the same voltage compared to the others. Mostly these steps draw more Current without drastically dropping over-time. So, the system is more stable and has the potential to accept more current and transport more charge within the cell. In addition, it is also clear, at the beginning, each voltage-step has given a very short duration and rapidly changed until it starts drawing some high-current. This is also a good example of battling against the high polarization at the lower SOCs [<NUM>, <NUM>].

Also, a frequent relaxation has applied during this period. Similar situation can be seen at the end where the steps were frequently changed with multiple-relaxations, this is when the Drawn High Current is not that stable and tend to drop very rapidly.

<FIG> shows the NLV based charging process as a flow diagram of important processes. Followings section will explain the details of each of these main processes.

This is an optional process as the system depends on the SOC gain. Having this measured using any external methods will also help the system to improve its performance.

Therefore, several methods have been explored to determine the initial SOC. The Thermodynamic based SOC prediction using fuzzy logic is one of the accurate and faster methods which have been identified. Some other potential methods can also be found in literature in ref [<NUM>, <NUM>]. So, the system not only caters the charging from <NUM>% (SOC) to <NUM>% (SOC) but also supports any partial charging. This initial SOC (if available) can also be used to determine the initial "K" value, with reference to <FIG>.

Initialization parameter of this protocol can be categorized in to two main sections:.

If this mode is opted, a 3C Constant Current (CC) will be applied for a shorter period to leverage the battery towards fast-charging. The default period is <NUM> minutes, but both the CC current and this short period is configurable.

While CC charging, a relaxation [C. <NUM> REST, "<NUM>" current for a <NUM> step-time (CTS)] is applied after every 10th steps. Once, the CC based charging is completed, a longer relaxation (<NUM> CTS) is applied before moving to the next Process.

This step is used as the initialization/ kick-start process for NLV charging. For the NLV process to calculate the next-non-linear-set-voltage, a frame of Current and Voltage values is required. Therefore, as a starting point, some other methods are needed for a very short period (<NUM> frame duration) to charge the battery. This will also gain some capacity which will push the battery away from the lower SOC stages where a high polarization is hindering the fast charging.

Therefore, any of the following methods are suitable for this kick-start:.

To simplify the explanation, LSV has been used as the kick-start method:.

Updating the Voltage (V), Current (I), and Temperature (T) should be done after every step. Therefore, for each step, the update is taken place just before triggering the next step. So, the current taken to calculate the Capacity gain is the minimum current during that CTS time frame (<NUM> secs in default case). Further:
From "Update Path X", every time the incoming/ new reading will be stored as the next- element in the frame. As the "process D" will be continued only for CFS number of times, the frame will be completely filled with the completion of the "process D".

From "Update Path Y", every new/next reading will be stored as the last element of the frame. All its previous data will be pushed back from <NUM> position. So, every time the very 1st item of the frame will be wiped-off.

VoltageFrame & CurrentFrame arrays will be filled to store the frame values and will be continuously updated during the charging process.

A simple method to calculate the SOC is to use the Coulomb counting in real-time: <MAT> where "I" is the current and "dt" is time duration of a step, with reference to <FIG> and Qnom is the nominal capacity of the cell.

The default "Step-time" has set as <NUM> secs. So, whenever some Current draws by the battery, the relevant capacity gain will be calculated based on the above equation (C = I x t: Current x Time). Then it will be updated to the main capacity-gain. This will be used in the protocol to define the SOC, and subsequently to control over the parameters for changing SOC.

There is no capacity calculation during a relaxation step.

Above equation is used to determine the NLV based Set Voltage at every single charge step. But the Kn is also changing based on a set of factors. Following are the main factors used to control it:.

The control logic and the reference table which we used for our reference protocol based on the above claims are as follows:.

The flow in <FIG> explains how the K-Value & StepTime are controlled based on the parameters shown in the above tables [<NUM>-<NUM>]:
As per the <FIG>, the "Default K (K*k_TF)" & "Default Step Time" will be used only for the very first step in NLV based charging. For all the subsequent steps, the above training algorithm will be applied and find the best suitable "K Value" and "Step Time".

Therefore, it is guaranteed that these parameters get adjusted based on the SOC & SOH of the battery which causes the possible drawn Current to be different.

As illustrated by <FIG>, whenever the drawn C-Rate is very low, the K-Value has rapidly increased. Yet, the current has tempted to increase gradually at a space where the battery is capable of handling it.

Also when the C-Rate is high, the K-Value decreases. But the, K-Value decreases to a very low value only when the system tempt to draw a current which has the C-Rate closer or above the expected C-Rate.

As illustrated by <FIG>, when the SOC is about half of the full-capacity, the K-Value becomes very low as the battery has a high potential of drawing high Current.

As illustrated by <FIG>, when the SOC is close to the full-capacity, the K-Value becomes fluctuating rapidly and tries to maintain a high drawing Current.

The idea of having an Adjustable "Target End Voltage" is to enhance the gain capacity depending on its SOC and SOH. Whenever the battery has a good SOH, a major part of the charge capacity can be drawn within a lover voltage range. So, the system sets a "Default Target End Voltage" as an exit point for the NLV charging at the beginning. Whenever the real-time-voltage of the battery reaches this "Default Target End Voltage", the system checks the C-Rate driven by the real-time Current at that time. Then based on this C-Rate, the system determines whether to increase the "Target End Voltage" and continue charging or stop charging at this point. To determine this based on C-Rate, there are two methods considered in the protocol:.

This is intended to serve as a universal controller for the End Voltage for any battery type. Also, this table form-up as an average polarization profile which can be used whenever the "Specific Polarization Profile" is not available for the battery type being targeted for charging. It also intends to train itself based on the charging statistics.

Following table <NUM> is used as the "Default End Voltage Table" for the reference protocol which was explained here:.

Table <NUM>, corresponds to the End Voltage values if the the "Default End Voltage" was selected as <NUM> V. But this is again a customizable parameter where it can change under system/user preferences. Yet, we intend to have a range for this based on the battery type/chemistry. Therefore, as a global control logic, handling the "Adjustable End Voltage" can be shown as below, <FIG>.

There are three different criteria to decide on when to stop the charging process.

If the current profile closely matches with that of any previous current profiles seen during similar exit situations, the learning algorithm intends to improve on its exit profile. Depending on the availability of the above three methods, the same precedence as <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> will be considered to decide on whether to exit.

Managing the Rest is always applying zero (<NUM>) Current to the battery. The charge cycles will pass-over during this Rest period.

Once at least one criterium is made, the NLV charging will stop. But, depending on how much of a capacity-gain was reached, the system decides whether to go through another round of CC [with 2C constant current charging] or NLV again.

Constant Current charging at 2C will be applied during <NUM> minutes at the end of NLV charging to gain further Capacity if the NLV driven capacity is not sufficient compared to the target. This Constant Current and its Duration is configurable as the system parameters.

With reference to <FIG>, this is an average profile of the tests which went up to <NUM> cycles without any issue, until we stopped it purposely.

Alternatively, the CC protocol, the CCCV protocol and/or the Cascade Pulse Charging protocol (PCT application # <CIT>) can be applied at the beginning of, in the middle of and at the end of the NLV protocol according to this invention.

The K-Value is changed based on how best the battery can draw the expected C-Rate of current of above. If, it draws very low C-Rate, the K-Value will be rapidly increasing to model a sudden hike in Voltage and subsequently results in high current. If it draws expected C-Rate or higher, the K-Value changed to a very low and try its best to gain the maximum possible charge with that high-current charging. On other cases, the K-value changed to maintain the expected C-Rate all the time, as much as possible.

<FIG> illustrates NLV Charging: Current and K-Value vs Time during the NLV-Charge ended in Fully Charged up to <NUM> mAh in just <NUM> mins, Random Test <NUM>.

<FIG> illustrates NLV Charging: Current and K-Value during the NLV-Charge ended in Fully Charged for <NUM> mAh in <NUM> mins, Random Test <NUM>.

A variation of K vs Time in a Logarithmic Scale is represented in <FIG>.

For NLV charging; the variation of "K-value" and SOC vs Time is represented in <FIG>, while the evolution of "K"-value vs SOC is represented in <FIG>.

The graph in <FIG> shows the charging-profile of the NLV-based adaptive charging protocol applied to <NUM> cells. This has charged a battery of <NUM> mAh stated-capacity in just <NUM> mins up-to <NUM>% charge with a gained-capacity of <NUM> mAh.

The highlighted segment was further analyzed to envisage the workings in the protocol.

Analyzing around <NUM> samples from the highlighted section in <FIG>:.

The A & B segments shown above have examined closely in the next section:.

Above "B" segment shown in the rectangular frame in the following table.

The "AVG (Abs (dI/dt))" & "dV/dt" are calculated for respective Current & Voltage variations collected during the charging process.

As seen in the above table, the Current has dropped during this "B" segment.

Therefore, both the dI & dv has sown a sudden hike or a drop. This has caused the multiplication precisions to make a deviation in their product.

<FIG> shows that the Discharge capacity maintain almost constant at around <NUM> mAh which is about <NUM>% of the stated capacity of the battery. Therefore, it proves that this NLV based charging method doesn't contribute much into capacity fading over time.

This is a very good advantage over other competitive Fast Charging methodologies which are mostly based on directly imposing high current.

<FIG> & <FIG> show that even after multiple cycles of NLV based charging, still the charging profile of current and voltage stays mostly the same. This is another proof to show that the cells are not damaged due to this fast charging process.

Claim 1:
A Non-Linear Voltammetry, NLV, -based method for charging a battery system, said method comprising steps for charging said battery system, every of said charging step including steps of:
- setting said battery system to a certain charging-voltage value which is non-linearly changing and gradually increasing at every step, during a variable step duration,
- measuring the current being drawn by said battery system, to determine a time-derivative <MAT> of charge current and monitor a drop-rate of said drawn current,
- measuring temperature within said battery system,
- applying a relaxation with charging kept on hold and zero current to said battery system to stabilize with its new charge, whenever said measured temperature rises above a safety limit, for a time duration until resume when an expected temperature range is secured,
- determining a next charging-voltage value for new charging step, by applying for the previous step duration a time-derivative of voltage <MAT> that is a calculated from the following equation: <MAT>
where:
- Kn is changed at every step, based on a set of parameters including a State of Charge, SOC, and a State of Health, SOH, of said battery system;
- α is an adjustable constant, to match non- linear relations between current and voltage based on different types of battery,
- <MAT> is an average value of the time derivative of the drawn current during said previous charging step.