Age-related development of cell-to-cell variation under various operating conditions in commercial NMC/graphite lithium-ion cells

In real applications, lithium-ion cells are usually used in individual interconnections, with the worst cell determining capacity, performance and service life. Due to different ageing rates of the assembled cells, cell-to-cell variation changes over lifetime. In literature, cell-to-cell variation is usually investigated near room temperature under one operating condition. Data regarding cell-to-cell variation above and below room temperature under different operating conditions are hard to find. To fill the gap in literature, this study considers cell-to-cell variation as a function of different charge/discharge currents at ambient temperatures between 0°C and 40°C on commercial NMC/graphite cells (Samsung SDI ICR18650-26J). The results demonstrate that cell-to-cell variation strongly depends on the selected operating conditions. In particular, operating conditions near the lithium plating boundary at the beginning of the ageing process have a particularly high risk of developing a pronounced variation. Fast charging or charging at lower temperatures should therefore be avoided. Operation at moderate temperatures and currents, on the other hand, only leads to a slight increase in cell-to-cell variation in the tests carried out. A 24-month storage during the testing period at 30% SOC and room temperature of the same cells shows even a slight reduction in cell-to-cell variation. •Cyclic and calendar-induced cell-to-cell variation of 217 cells is investigated.•Operating conditions near the plating boundary show a significantly higher variation.•The cell-to-cell variation of 24 months stored cells has slightly decreased.