Low-temperature reversible capacity loss and aging mechanism in lithium-ion batteries for different discharge profiles

In this paper, reversible capacity loss of lithium-ion batteries that cycled with different discharge profiles (0.5, 1, and 2 C) is investigated at low temperature (-10 degrees C). The results show that the capacity and power degradation is more severe under the condition of low discharge rate, not the widely accepted high discharge rate. To shed some light on the aging phenomena, noninvasive electrochemical methods, ie, incremental capacity and differential voltage analysis, are applied to identify and quantify the effects of different degradation modes (DMs). Apart from the resistance increase, the DMs include the loss of lithium inventory (LLI) and the loss of active material (LAM). Both LLI and LAM decay to a greater extent for the cell cycled with lower discharge rate, and the growth of LAM is higher than that of LLI. Further, the analysis of state of charge (SOC) window shows that the earlier cutoff of the high discharge rate can lead to less mechanical and thermal stress on cathode materials, thus a lower degradation rate. Another cause is that the lithium plating on the anode materials can be mitigated by increasing the charging temperature which results from preceding high rate discharging.