The Precise Battery—towards Digital Twins for Advanced Batteries

Dear Colleagues,

Electromobility has led to high demands with respect to energy and power density, durability and safety. Thus, there have been rapid and varied developments in battery technology, especially for Li-Ion and post Li-Ion battery cells.

To meet these stringent requirements (cell, module, system) and to set new benchmarks, research efforts in various areas are in progress. On the one hand, new candidates for negative electrodes are being investigated, such as lithium metal or silicon. Research is also constantly ongoing on solid electrolytes to make said anode materials feasible. At the positive electrode, the Ni content is steadily increased to reduce the amount of cobalt and nickel. Furthermore, abundant and safe electrodes such as lithium iron phosphate (LFP) have gained enhanced interest.

In parallel to new material developments at the cellular level, the optimization of cell design and operating strategy are in focus. Important factors include the tab design, the geometric cell and battery formats, the cell size (in terms of Ah) and the energy content. The challenges o material selection and cell design are doubtless important trade-offs among different KPIs.

However, without a precise battery model and advanced calculation methods, all the aforementioned mentioned attempts fail. A precise battery model is a digital twin including electrical, thermal, mechanical and aging models as well as new approaches employing artificial intelligence. Additionally, the digital twin should show real-time ability.

Consequently, we want to promote and address a new Special Issue ‘The precise battery battery - towards digital twins for advanced batteries’.

Research on the enhancement of the accuracy of models, their smart combination and sophisticated stand-alone calculation methods in terms of materials, cells, modules and battery level are highly welcome. All these contributions are necessary to build up digital twins for batteries.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Digital twins of battery cells;
• Digital twins for battery systems;
• Equivalent circuit and equation-based battery modeling;
• Electrical, thermal and mechanical battery modeling;
• Lifetime estimation of battery cells and modules;
• Accuracy enhancement methods for battery states and lifetime estimation;
• Calculation-based cell size optimization for advanced Li-ion batteries;
• Calculation aspects of battery cell and pack design;
• Quantifying the impact of solid electrolytes;
• Quantifying the impact of new electrode materials.

Prof. Dr. Kai Peter Birke
Dr. Alexander Fill
Guest Editors

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