Continuous improvement of existing battery concepts (e.g. lithium-ion batteries) and the development of novel technologies (e.g. lithium-air or zinc-air) require a testing setup for assessing single battery components (e.g. electrodes, separators, electrolyte, etc.) or complete cells. Special testing and measuring cells, also referred to as analytical cells, and coin cells are used to enable testing setups which simulate real operation conditions including different test scenarios (e.g. cyclization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltammetry, etc.).
The assembly of coin and analytical cells must to be performed in a special environment (e.g. glovebox) to protect single components against air, water and nitrogen. In addition, specialized tools (e.g. coin cell press) are needed. Subsequent cyclization and analysis are performed using special hardware (e.g. Neware, Ivium, Zahner).
The obtained results enable predictions for scaling the components to larger battery formats as well as a better understanding of the electrochemical processes that occur. Furthermore, different battery models can be parameterized (e.g. in COMSOL), optimizing the utilization of batteries and battery systems