New battery charging model slashes lithium plating risk by 90%

A team led by Alessio Alberto Lodge at TU Delft has demonstrated a novel health-aware fast charging strategy using a Homogenized Model (HM) derived from homogenization theory applied to the Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations. The HM retains the physics of the Doyle-Fuller-Newman model while capturing electrode microstructural heterogeneity in a one-dimensional double-continua formulation. By reconstructing three-dimensional distributions of electrochemical variables from precomputed closure variables, the model acts as a virtual sensor for non-invasive estimation of heterogeneous anode potentials.

The key innovation is coupling this HM with a classical PID controller in a MATLAB-COMSOL co-simulation framework. The PID regulator dynamically adjusts charging current to ensure the full 3D anode potential distribution remains above the lithium plating threshold (0V vs Li/Li+), effectively preventing degradation while maximizing charge speed. The results show model-based fast charging at a fraction of the computational cost of high-fidelity models, paving the way for safer, degradation-aware, and efficient fast charging of lithium-ion batteries.