Aging-electric abuse of graphite/LiFePO4 batteries from a chemical characterization perspective

Lithium-ion batteries are currently leading the way towards the green transition in the transport sector. The graphite/LiFePO4 is the most widely used cell available on the market and although these batteries meet high safety standards, accidents are frequent and, even under guaranteed safety conditions, battery degradation occurs over time, during working and storage. To date, available research has been mainly focused on the study of the electrical abuse of batteries, carried out under severe conditions, in terms of overvoltage, to improve their safety. On the other hand, also the study of aging under standard conditions is really attractive, to investigate the degradation under the normally used conditions and to find alternative applications of batteries when their original use is no longer permitted, leading to economic and environmental benefits. In this regard, in this work, experimental studies of aging were carried out on a commercial graphite/LiFePO4 cells under realistic conditions of use for the automotive sector. More specifically, the cell was aged under realistic working conditions, thus allowing a fair comparison between the new and the used one about the chemical characterization.