Detection of Unbalanced Voltage Cells in Series-connected Lithium-ion Batteries Using Single-frequency Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy

For a battery module where single cells are connected in series, the single cells should each have a similar state of charge (SOC) to prevent them from being exposed to an overcharge or over-discharge during charge-discharge cycling. To detect the existence of unbalanced SOC cells in a battery module, we propose a simple measurement method using a single-frequency response of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). For a commercially available graphite/nickel-cobalt-aluminum-oxide lithium-ion cell, the cell impedance increases significantly below SOC20%, while the impedance in the medium SOC region (SOC20%-SOC80%) remains low with only minor changes. This impedance behavior is mostly due to the elementary processes of cathode reactions in the cell. Among the impedance values (Z, Z', Z"), the imaginary component of Z" regarding cathode reactions changes heavily as a function of SOC, in particular, when the EIS measurement is performed around 0.1 Hz. Thanks to the significant difference in the time constant of cathode reactions between ≤SOC10% and ≥SOC20%, a single-frequency EIS measurement enlarges the difference in impedance between balanced and unbalanced cells in the module and facilitates an ~80% improvement in the detection signal compared to results with conventional EIS measurements.