The
safety of the degraded lithium-ion batteries has an essential
impact on second life application. This study systematically investigates
the thermal safety changes of lithium-ion batteries after deep aging
under the fast charge aging path and reveals the degradation mechanisms
caused by fast charge cycling. Lithium plating is the primary degradation
mechanism, which thickens the solid electrolyte interface film, causes
the loss of active lithium and electrolyte, and leads to a significant
increase in impedance and a dramatic decrease in capacity. Therefore,
compared with the fresh cells, the heat generation rate increases,
while the total heat generation is reduced for aged cells. Besides,
the thickened solid electrolyte interface film has lower thermal stability,
decreasing the self-heating temperature for aged cells. Furthermore,
thermal runaway results of partial cells prove that fast charge cycling
reduces the thermal stability of the anode, which further proves that
the thermal runaway-triggering temperature decrease is the result
of the combination of the anode–electrolyte and anode–cathode
reactions. Moreover, fast charge cycling reduces the lithium plating
potential upon overcharging, which leads to the occurrence of side
reactions in advance, creating the ratio of side reaction heat increase
of aged cells for thermal runaway triggering. In addition, the loss
of active materials reduces the maximum temperature and maximum temperature
rise rate of the aged cell. The findings can provide references for
battery safety management system optimization and safer battery screening.