Influences of thermal volume changes in LiMn₂O₄ particles on the performance of a Li-ion battery

The influence of thermal volume changes in the particles of an anode material, LiMn₂O₄, on the battery performances such as electric capacity, voltage and ion concentration on a level of a Li-ion battery was investigated systematically during charge and discharge, based on 1-D and 2-D thermal analysis models coupled with experimental temperature-volume data. The mathematical battery models were solved numerically and analyses were performed for many cases. Each thermal effect was compared with the cases not considering thermal volume changes. When temperature variations and volume changes are taken into account, the voltage and Li-ion concentration of a battery cell increases by about 1.0 % further than those of the cases neglecting particle volume changes. These results can be considered to be reasonable in light of that the largest experimental volume change due to temperature variation is about 0.7 %.