Abstract
Recent surge in demand for wearable technology products such as activity tracking smartwatches, and for medical devices has necessitated development of flexible secondary lithium ion batteries which also possess high capacity, robustness and thin form factors. Oftentimes, these power sources are only charged up to a partial state of charge (SoC) before use (shallow charge). Their usage continues until the SoC reaches almost zero, after which they are recharged again. Nowadays, the ‘fast-charge ‘feature used to charge the battery at higher C-rates, is a necessity in consumer electronics rather than an amenity. Also, in everyday use, these batteries are exposed to higher-than-ambient temperatures due to perpetual human body contact and also to the high temperatures resulting from poor thermal management in compact devices. This study investigates the compounded influence of partial charge, high temperatures and high C-rates on the capacity degradation of a flexible Li-ion power source subjected to accelerated life testing. The battery current and terminal voltage were logged for multiple charge-discharge cycles and were used to compute the battery capacity and energy efficiency. Finally, a regression model based on several parameters was developed to estimate the battery capacity as a function of the cycle number.
