Hierarchical Tomography of Automotive Format Li-ion Batteries: imaging studies for the electrode to the module level

We propose to study the effect of orientations-gravity on the ageing of Li-ion battery with extremely large size and heavy weight from an electric vehicle (EV) using Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HIP-CT) at the new BM18. Our key objective is performing non-destructive, 3D tomographic-scans with hierarchically increasing resolution at key locations in each cell. The HIP-CT will provide an opportunity to obtain a structural overview of the cell module at medium resolution (16 µm) followed by multiple higher-resolution volumes of the electrode (down to 0.6 µm), overcoming the common ‘spatial-scale barrier’ in common CT systems and therefore, bridging the link between the module, cell, electrode and particle level within an intact large format Li-ion cell for the first time. HIP-CT will help in evaluating the state-of-health, and define a new approach to access whether a high-resolution region is representative of the entire Li-ion pouch.