A Battery Screening System for Second Life LiFePO₄ Batteries

Once the first generation of Li-ion batteries that power electric vehicles will reach the End of Life, car manufacturers and local governments will face a real problem. The growing number of retired batteries, do not meet the automotive safety standards any more but still have around 80% of their initial capacity which makes them ideal for other applications. For their new job, they have to be properly evaluated so cells with similar characteristics are used in the same battery packs. This paper presents a method and a system that can very fast and accurately determine cells with similar characteristics. The system is used to screen LiFePO₄ (LFP), batteries on-site and sort cells based on their DC resistance. After this stage, they are tagged and evaluated through a common screening method.