Analytical solution for electrolyte concentration distribution in lithium-ion batteries

In this article, the method of separation of variables (SOV), as illustrated by Subramanian and White (J Power Sources 96:385, 2001), is applied to determine the concentration variations at any point within a three region simplified lithium-ion cell sandwich, undergoing constant current discharge. The primary objective is to obtain an analytical solution that accounts for transient diffusion inside the cell sandwich.The presentwork involves the application of the SOVmethod to each region (cathode, separator, and anode) of the lithium-ion cell. This approach can be used as the basis for developing analytical solutions for battery models of greater complexity. This is illustrated here for a case in which nonlinear diffusion is considered, but will be extended to full-order nonlinear pseudo-2D models in later work. The analytical expressions are derived in terms of the relevant system parameters. The systemconsidered for this study has LiCoO <inf>2</inf>-LiC <inf>6</inf> battery chemistry. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012.