Challenges in Moving to Multiscale Battery Models - Where Electrochemistrymeets and demands more from Math

Abstract

As lithium-metal and lithium-sulfur batteries are receiving great attention being among the most promising candidates for next-generation batteries in transportation applications, there has been significant recent interest in studying their multiscale characteristics. Multiple studies have conveyed the importance of microscale effects, pressure effects, and morphology changes for these batteries, especially for batteries with lithium metal as the anode. Advances in computing power make researchers believe that the detailed multiscale models can be efficiently simulated to arrive at the insights for the degradation and performance loss; however, this is not true and special attention needs to be paid to local singularities, boundary layers, moving boundaries, etc. This work presents 2D examples that illustrate the importance of grid convergence studies, provides well-defined detailed models to test the efficiency of numerical schemes, and discusses the associated simulation challenges. Perspective on important numerical aspects for robustness and efficiency, and recommendations on the possible best practices for studies involving multiscale modeling are also discussed.