(96b) Battery Modeling Using Porous Electrode Theory

Researchers who are new to or exploring what it would take to perform battery modeling are likely to quickly encounter references to porous electrode theory pioneered by John Newman and coworkers [1]. This tutorial will outline the basic mathematical principles of this technique, and give some practical advice on how it can be implemented in finite element solvers such as COMSOL Multiphysics to model Li-ion and similar types of batteries.

Battery modeling is well-suited to chemical engineers as it requires understanding and description of thermodynamic, kinetic, and transport processes. For researchers from the catalysis community who model transport and reaction in porous media, many concepts of battery modeling will be familiar. One notable exception is the use of electrical potential which acts much like temperature as a variable that, along with species concentrations, controls the distribution of reaction in the volume of interest.

Perhaps the most challenging part of battery modeling is determining the fundamental physical parameters needed, an area in which the author has spent considerable effort. This issue will be discussed in the second part of the talk.

 [1] Newman and Tiedemann, AIChE J. 21, 25-41 (1975).