Thermodynamic analysis of lithium ion cells

The thermodynamics of ideal and non-ideal solutions has been applied to the electrochemically active lithium-based positive electrode to provide insight into the electrostatic potential as a function of the state-of-discharge. The Nernst and the Margules expressions are incorporated in the derivation for the electrostatic potential expression using the total Gibbs free energy equation. The resulting expression is applied to a lithium cell in order to study its discharge profile. These predicted results are compared with established results from the literature and a comparison is performed to validate the agreement between the predicted and the published results. Paper presented at the International Conference on Functional Materials and Devices 2005, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 6 – 8, 2005.