Modeling of Li-Ion Battery Electrodes Accounting for Microstructure Properties: The Newman's Model Revisited

The most established lithium-ion battery (LIB) porous-based model is the Newman's pseudo-two-dimensional (P2D) model used as a good trade-off between numerical computational cost and physics precision. However, this model does not resolve the local fluctuations of physical quantities on the microstructure and can give inaccurate results especially at high C-rate. In this work, we revisit the P2D model by applying the method of volume averaging to mass and charge transport equations of LIB microstructure models. The outcome is a non-classical homogenized model where the effective properties do not only depend on geometry, but are shown to be functions of the local current density. The model reduces to the classical P2D at low C-rate, but extends the validity range of the P2D at high C-rate for complex microstructures. Moreover, the new model allows to reconstruct the local fluctuations from the averaged variables, whereas this information is not available from the classical P2D model.