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Energy Procedia 75 (2015) 1920 – 1925

The 7th International Conference on Applied Energy – ICAE2015

A review of SOH estimation methods in Lithium-ion batteries

for electric vehicle applications
Cheng Lina, Aihua Tanga,b* ,Wenwei Wanga
a
National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles, School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing
100081, China
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, Sichuan University of Science & Engineering , Zigong 643000, China

Abstract

Aging of lithium-ion cells is an inevitable phenomenon limiting the lifetime in electric vehicle (EV) applications.
Undesirable side reactions during cycle or calendar aging may affect the performance of the batteries. This results in
a decreased capacity and an increase in the cell impedance. Furthermore, the aging phenomena are highly
complicated to characterize due to the coupling of different factors. In this review, various aspects of recent research
and developments, on lithium-ion battery aging mechanisms, analysis and estimations are put forward. To better
understand a comparison and summary of techniques, models and algorithms used for battery aging estimation
(SOH,RUL), going from a detailed spectroscopy and electrochemical technique to statistical methods based on data
are presented in this paper, and their respective characteristics are discussed. In addition some considerations about
the ideal method that can be derived from existing methods should be discussed and reported in this paper.

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and/or
Peer-review peer-review of
under responsibility under responsibility
Applied of ICAE
Energy Innovation Institute

Key words: Lithium-ion; electric vehicle (EV); aging mechanisms; methods; characteristics

1. Introduction

Lithium-ion batteries are considered the most promising power sources for EV due to their high power
and energy densities [1]. As most of the battery systems, batteries suffer capacity fade and the resistance
growth during both cycle and storage. Understanding the relevant aging mechanisms in batteries is of
great importance to face lifetime, safety challenges, make precise lifetime predictions and improve the
battery performance[2]. Identifying aging mechanisms in a battery is the main and the most challenging

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-106-891-3992; fax: +86-106-891-3992.

E-mail address: tahme@163.com.

1876-6102 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Applied Energy Innovation Institute
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2015.07.199
 Cheng Lin et al. / Energy Procedia 75 (2015) 1920 – 1925 1921

goal. Such processes are complicated as many factors from ambient environment or from charge and
discharge mode interact to generate different aging effects. This makes the aging comprehension a
difficult task, and throughout the years, many studies tried to explore the aging mechanisms[3]. This
review intends to summarize current researches on mechanisms, factors and estimation methods of
lithium-ion battery aging on EVs. These aging studies and methodologies come from many various fields
such as electrochemical models, semi-empirical models or statistical methods. The diversity and the
multitude of existing studies dealing with battery aging provide a large amount of information. This paper
presents all of these approaches along with their respective characteristics. Finally, a discussion on the
methods' advantages and disadvantages is proposed. At last, a methodology for aging battery estimation
solving the drawbacks of the previous methods is suggested.

2. Battery aging mechanisms

Battery aging can be dissociated into two parts: the cycle aging and the calendar one [4]. Each term
defines the alterations caused by different uses of the battery. Thus, the calendar aging corresponds to the
consequences of battery storage. On the contrary, cycle aging is associated with the impact of battery
utilization periods named cycles (charge or discharge). As the cycle life of batteries is influenced by many
factors such as temperature, SOC (State of charge), ∆SOC, charge and discharge current, charging cut-off
voltage and discharging cut-off voltage, charging methods, etc. Different researchers design different
battery cycle life test profiles as a result of different research objectives[1]. The aging mechanisms in
cells can be roughly distinguished into capacity decrease and increase of impedance/inner resistance
during storage and cycle. The degradation mechanisms from the positive and negative electrode are
different. The origin of aging mechanisms can be chemical, thermal or mechanical and are strongly
dependent on electrode’s composition.

3. Approaches to SOH estimation

In order to evaluate the aging level of lithium-ion batteries, several indicators or notions are created.
The state of health (SOH) is the most-used indicator in the literature. Meanwhile, the relative capacity
which interprets SOH and capacity loss of batteries, which are generally defined by Refs.[1], are used as
indicators. The cell relative capacity could be calculated by Eq. (1).
Cn p
Crelative (1)
Cn0
where Cn p represents the capacity of current cells, Cn 0 represents the initial capacity of cell before
cycle test, and Crelative, n p represents the relative capacity of current cells.
Generally, the battery is considered to reach its end of life (EOL) when the battery capacity fades to
80% of its initial value. This indicator represents the battery fades. Different methods are used to estimate
the battery aging level, which are divided into the following five types:
1922 Cheng Lin et al. / Energy Procedia 75 (2015) 1920 – 1925

x Spectroscopy and electrochemical techniques models: investigation of electrodes and electrolyte and
deeper insight into important phenomena
x Equivalent circuit based models: the battery is reduced as an equivalent circuit model
x Semi-empiricals based models: battery aging is modeled by physical equations
x Analytical models with empirical fitting: estimation of aging parameters through measurements
x Statistical approach: approaches mainly based on data, without a priori knowledge

3.1. Spectroscopy and electrochemical techniques

The recent advances in the development of spectroscopy and electrochemical techniques and their
application for the study of lithium-ion batteries are revisited. It is demonstrated that, during a relatively
short period of time (1995–2013), the spectroelectrochemical techniques used for the investigation of
battery components, benefited directly from the tremendous advances of Raman technology. The most
important step was the implementation of confocal Raman microscopy in the battery research, which
opened a way to new and more sophisticated applications[5]. New Raman techniques such as surface-
enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), spatially offset Raman
spectroscopy (SORS) as well as the integration of Raman spectrometers into non-optical microscopes, for
example, atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction(XRD) and scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), allowed two or more analytical techniques on the same observation region, with an exceptionally
high resolution. All these progresses led to new insights into battery materials and components such as
electrodes and electrolytes, and helped to understand the electrode/electrolyte interface phenomena. This
enhanced understanding allowed a deeper insight into important phenomena, e.g., battery aging and the
dynamic nature of the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) formation in lithium batteries [6].

3.2. Methods based models

Many methods permit the estimation of aging based on models. Simple correlations between stress
factors and capacity fade/impedance raise, which are induced from aging tests conducted under several
conditions, are used in these methods. These methods intend to quantify the impact of aging factors and
obtain a descriptive expression of the battery aging level over the lifetime. Most time’s studies deal
independently with both aging: calendar and cycle [7,8].

3.2.1.Semi-empirical models for capacity loss

There are already some researches on the semi-empirical models of lithium-ion batteries cycle life.
The related literature [9–12] etc., point out that a power law exists between the battery capacity loss and
the cycle numbers. N. Omar [13] introduces a complicated capacity loss model considering the working
temperature, charge and discharge rate, depth of discharge. Here considers the main aging mechanism is
the lithium-ion loss, which is regarded to follow a power law relation to the cycle times. And it is widely
accepted that, for most chemical processes, the influence of temperature on the reaction rate follows the
Arrhenius law described by the Eq. (2).
Ea

[ Ae RT ˜ n z (2)
where [ represents the relative capacity loss of batteries with unit of %, A is a constant, Ea represents
the activation energy in J mol-1; R is the gas constant with unit of J/( mol-1 K); T represents temperature
with unit of K; n represents the cycle numbers and z is the power law factor. For the battery cycling under
an unchanged working condition, the model parameters A, Ea/R and z could be directly obtained by curve
fitting.
 Cheng Lin et al. / Energy Procedia 75 (2015) 1920 – 1925 1923

3.2.2. Equivalent circuit based models

Battery aging studies are not only focused on capacity and

R: RP resistance evolutions but also one equivalent circuit
 parameters in both cycling [14] and calendar part [7,15]. The
model-based method with an equivalent circuit model (ECM)
 was introduced by Rui Xiong et al. in [16, 17]. To update the
UOCV SOC  CP U battery model of aged cells and estimate SOC accurately and

reliably, a novel SOC estimation method based on the model
,
adaptive extended Kalman filter (MAEKF) was proposed by
 Saeed Sepasi et al. in [18]. An SOH estimation method is
Fig. 1. A simple ECM of lithium-ion batteries. introduced by Zhen Guo et al. in [19], which is based on a
simple equivalent circuit modelling approach shown in Fig.1
to parameterize a single-variable, time-based SOH inference model using CC charging profiles at various
stages of life for the SOH estimation. The initial CC charging profile when a battery is commenced for
service is benchmarked as 100% SOH. Subsequently, the SOH of the battery can be estimated by this
inference model as the battery ages. The model parameters can be derived from a nonlinear least squares
algorithm. The simplicity of this method makes its easy for on-board applications, obtaining the benefits
of less demand on prior learning and universality in application to different battery designs, chemistries,
and operating conditions. Especially, this approach gives accurate SOH estimate without sophisticated
experiment schedules, making this approach attractive for practical applications.

Table 1.Battery aging estimation methods performances comparison

Operate
Adaptation Precision Real time Prediction
without data

Physical measurement Excellent Excellent Very poor Excellent Very poor

equivalent circuit Very poor Fair Good Good Fair
model
electrochemical Very poor Excellent Fair Fair Fair
model
Semi-empirical model Very poor Good Fair Poor Good
Analytical model Very poor Good Poor Poor Poor
Statistical model Fair Good Good Very poor Good

3.3. Analytical model and statistical methods

In order to estimate battery aging level, an empirical method based on experiment data is accepted [20].
The most popular method is the “coulomb counting” which allows estimation of SOH by a simple
integration of current over time [21]. It requires a calibration at regular intervals, and it cannot be done in
real time [22]. A method based on state observations modelled the aging estimation problem with an
equation (3), with an input u (state vector) and an output y (voltage), depending of variables x.
­ x̂ Ax  Bu (3)
®
¯ y Cx
The goal is consequently to adjust a model from observations in order to minimize the error between
x̂ and y through a gain K. This correction gain K is then fixed by an algorithm, more precisely than an
Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) [23,24].
1924 Cheng Lin et al. / Energy Procedia 75 (2015) 1920 – 1925

As an analytical model, statistical method requires a large data set to be effective. The usage of time
series process, such an Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA), is a mostly adopted method [25]. This
method only works for one battery as each aging will be different because it depends on the battery usage.
Another approach can consider the battery’s end of life criteria as a failure by a Weibull law [26].
However this method, shown in Table 1, considers all different uses and conditions as a unique way
which reduces the result accuracy.

4. Conclusions

This review presented the lithium-ion battery aging mechanisms and studied various approaches
available to SOH estimation. Different methods tried to explain and analyse the aging processes from
microscopy measurements to statistical analysis. Each of methods introduced in this review has pros and
cons characteristics. Direct measurements do not need a battery hypothesis as it is a direct estimation, but
the only bias introduced is the measurement incertitude. Electrochemical models and equivalent circuit
models perform well but cannot be directly extended to other batteries. On the contrary, statistical
methods are easily adjustable to different batteries, and they can perform to give an aging diagnosis in
real time. But, this kind of method requires a large amount of effective data. Performances of methods for
battery aging estimation based on different criteria such as their prediction to capacity loss, their abilities
to perform in real time context, or their accuracy are represented. The different methods can complement
each other. That is, the actual compromise we are facing with the battery aging estimation. Therefore,
obtaining a complete battery SOH diagnosis considering every aging factor and compatible with an EV
application is still a major remaining challenge. Currently, the key issue for aging estimation is finding
the ideal compromise between various methods considering their application in EVs. Thus, the final goal
of an effective and accurate battery aging estimation, running in real-time for EVs, can be adopted in
various working conditions.

5. Copyright

Authors keep full copyright over papers published in Energy Procedia

Acknowledgements

The authors would also like to thank the reviewers for their corrections and helpful suggestions.

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Biography
Aihua Tang is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in vehicle Engineering with the
Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China.