Importance of Coulombic Efficiency Measurements in R&D Efforts to Obtain Long-Lived Li-Ion Batteries

Determining the lifetime of Li-ion cells destined for decade-long applications is very challenging. Li-ion cells for long life applications fail because of parasitic reactions, occurring at tiny rates, between the electrolyte and the charged electrodes that are occurring all the time. The existence and magnitude of these parasitic reactions can be determined using high precision coulometry and, hence, high accuracy measurements of coulombic efficiency of Li-ion cells, made in a few weeks, can be used to rank cells by lifetime.