A cost and time effective novel methodology to determine specific heat capacity of lithium-ion cells

A cost and time-effective novel method for determining the specific heat capacity of prismatic and pouch lithium-ion cells using a simple setup and easily available equipment is presented in this paper. Specific heat capacity is an important thermal parameter of lithium-ion cells which is not readily available or provided by the cell manufacturers. The results found in this work are compared with the calorimetrically determined values of the specific heat capacity and a maximum error of 5% and 1.4% have been found for the pouch and the prismatic cells, respectively. The minimum error in the specific heat capacity for the pouch and the prismatic cells are 0.7% and 0.1%, respectively. The thermal parameters obtained using this methodology have been used to model the surface temperature of a prismatic cell during the application of a dynamic pulsed power as well as New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) and Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Cycle (WLTC) drive cycles-based power traces. The excellent matching of the measured and simulated cell's surface temperature during both the NEDC and WLTC drive cycles demonstrates that the thermal parameters determined using this new method can be used to model the surface temperature of the cell.