Battery Cell Screening for Nonuniform Degradation Elimination

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing lithium-ion battery degradation technologies fail to adequately address degradation due to nonuniformity of potentials in the electrode plane, leading to inaccurate degradation assessment and reduced battery life when batteries are reused.

Innovation Solution

A battery processing system and method that includes a control device to monitor degradation indicators, executing first and second elimination processes to address nonuniformity of lithium ion concentration and potential distributions, respectively, through controlled charging and discharging to mitigate and eliminate these issues.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If elimination processing is executed only when the state of charge is out of the allowable range, then the battery pack durability is improved, but the productivity is worsened due to increased rework and time consumption

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvebattery pack durabilityVSAvoidbattery pack assembly throughput
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The control device executes elimination processing in advance based on degradation indicator values before final assembly, identifying and eliminating degraded cells proactively. This preliminary action prevents later failures and rework, improving battery pack durability while maintaining assembly throughput by filtering out problematic cells before they cause issues during operation or final testing.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

2Measurement precision

If multiple types of degradation are monitored separately, then the measurement precision is improved, but the device complexity is worsened

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedegradation detection accuracyVSAvoidmonitoring system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The control device combines multiple degradation monitoring functions into a single integrated system. It simultaneously monitors voltage deviation, temperature deviation, and charge-discharge rate, calculating composite degradation indicator values that reflect multiple degradation modes. This merging approach maintains high measurement precision for detecting various degradation types while reducing device complexity by consolidating monitoring functions into one control device rather than separate systems for each degradation type.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentEP4376162B1Battery processing system and battery processing method
Publication Date: 2026.04.08 TOYOTA JIDOSHA KK
  • EP4376162B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4376162B1 patent drawingFigure 2~3
  • EP4376162B1 patent drawingFigure 4

AI summary

A control device executes processing including: executing first elimination processing (S106) when there is a history of addition of degradation indicator values ΣD (YES in S102) and also when degradation indicator value ΣD is larger than a first threshold value TH1 (YES in S 104); measuring a characteristic value of a cell (S 108); executing second elimination processing (S 110); determining reusability (S 1 14) when the characteristic value is within an allowable range (YES in S 1 12); determining unreusability (S 116) when the characteristic value is out of the allowable range (NO in S 112); and executing the second elimination processing (S 118) when degradation indicator value ΣD is first threshold value TH1 or less (NO in S 104).