Novel non-destructive detection methods of lithium plating in commercial lithium-ion batteries under dynamic discharging conditions

Lithium plating is one of the severest problems of lithium-ion batteries at low temperature and high charge rates, which induces severe capacity fading and may lead to safety problems. Therefore, reliable and non-destructive detection methods of lithium plating are needed for safety and reliable operation of lithium-ion batteries. In electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries are operated under dynamic discharging conditions which exceeds the applicable scope of the existing methods. In this paper, two lithium plating detection methods suitable for offline and online use are proposed. The detection of lithium plating based on the high voltage plateau in the discharge profile at plating conditions is further extended to the dynamic discharging conditions. The offline method is applicable to data platform and has further potential to be combined with big data analysis. The online method can be operated in real-time during discharging and therefore can be used in the battery management system. Three kinds of large-format commercial batteries are used to conduct experiments to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Characteristic parameters which have positive correlation with the amount of lithium plating are proposed.