Regulating charge heterogeneity of lithium-ion battery via tab design toward maximizing extreme fast-charging performance

Construction of high-throughput electrical transmission structure via tab design is an effective way of developing high-power lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). In this paper, five types of 18650-cylindrical LIBs with different tab structures were prepared to analyze the mechanism of the effects of tab structure on battery performance, including internal resistance, C-rate performance, thermal and cycle. Research showed that the number of tabs and position were important factors, which strongly decided the internal resistance of battery. By adjusting tab structure, an extremely fast charging performance surpassing 10C can be achieved. Besides, the battery showed excellent cycle stability of more than 3000 cycles at 6C, which was proved to be due to optimizing the Li-ion concentration distribution of electrodes. The work also emphasized that excessive tabs contributed to no significant improvement in electrochemical performances at normal charging/discharging rates (<1C) for 18650 ​cells. The relationship between the operation conditions and tab design is established to further guide the manufacturing.