Sciencemadness Discussion Board

How to restore Li-ion battery capacity?

MultiplePersonality - 25-7-2018 at 05:14

I read these 2 recent articles published in January 2018, they talk about 3rd electrode:
NTU scientist's invention can restore phone's battery life
Groundbreaking invention can restore old lithium batteries to 95% capacity

But their method is not explained in detail, and looks like impossible or complicated for amateur. Is there some easy way to restore laptop or smartphone battery capacity without opening battery at all?

Here is some theory from batteryuniversity:
BU-802: What Causes Capacity Loss?
BU-808b: What Causes Li-ion to Die?

According to that last link:

The four suspected renegades responsible for capacity loss and the eventual end-of-life of the Li-ion battery are:

1. Mechanical degradation of electrodes or loss of stack pressure in pouch-type cells. Careful cell design and correct electrolyte additives minimize this cause. (See Figure 4.)
2. Growth of solid electrolyte interface (SEI) on the anode. A barrier forms that obstructs the interaction with graphite, resulting in an increase of internal resistance. SEI is seen as a cause for capacity loss in most graphite-based Li-ion when keeping the charge voltage below 3.92V/cell. Electrolyte additives reduce some of the effect.
3. Formation of electrolyte oxidation (EO) at the cathode that may lead to a sudden capacity loss. Keeping the cells at a voltage above 4.10V/cell and at an elevated temperature promotes this phenomenon. Figure 5 demonstrates SEI and EO as a function of voltage.
4. Lithium-plating on the surface of the anode caused by high charging rates. (Elevated capacity loss at higher C-rates in Figure 4 might be caused by this.)

So can any of these last effects be reversed without opening battery? Some people online talk about freezing, shaking, exposing to high temperature, using weird voltages, and many "pseudoscience" stuff, looks like they are joking. Please give explanation why something would or would not work! And don't tell me to buy another battery, they are expensive, and that is not science. And is making some our batteries good solution?

andy1988 - 27-7-2018 at 12:14

Quote: Originally posted by MultiplePersonality  
I read these 2 recent articles published in January 2018, they talk about 3rd electrode:
NTU scientist's invention can restore phone's battery life
Groundbreaking invention can restore old lithium batteries to 95% capacity

But their method is not explained in detail,

Thank you, very interesting. It may be explained better in their paper(s). It does sound as though the battery with the third electrode must be made from scratch.

Quote: Originally posted by MultiplePersonality  
So can any of these last effects be reversed without opening battery?

My understanding is largely bullets 3 & 4, don't use the battery at elevated temperature and/or high discharge rate. Other factors you can't control. I'd blame the laptop designer in part for intentional obsolescence. It is not profitable to make things last... I recall a paper published not long after the U.S.'s great depression saying capitalism wouldn't work without increased consumption due to planned obsolescence.

Here is an interesting procedure, an amateur could do, for converting non-rechargeable LiMnO2 batteries (common coin cell batteries) to rechargeable lithium air batteries with superior performance (capacity, discharge rate). All they do is drill holes in one side and put powdered graphite in (to increase efficiency). However the electrolyte gas initially within the cell may be toxic (so open and blow it out in a well ventilated environment). Thank Chinese (socialist?) researchers for this paper.

I highly doubt any of these publicly traded companies would implement Professor Rachid Yazami's technology unless driven by regulation, and their interest is in self-preservation. "How can we prevent third party manufacturers from eating our market share?"

As to your original question, I think you had found a very good solution to the issue, but good luck getting it implemented.