Benchmarking the BYD LFP 4680 cell: Using CT to characterize cell design and quality

Check out our latest publication, in collaboration with the Shirley Meng group! The publication is entitled “Design and Performance of the BYD LFP/Graphite 4680 Cylindrical Cell” and was published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. You can read the paper here and view the scans on the Glimpse Portal here.

Variation in core quality metrics across 25 sample BYD LFP 4680 cells. These cells exhibit minimal variation across a variety of geometric features as quantified via CT. Reproduced from Figure 4 of Liu et al. (link).

In this paper, we benchmarked one of the most interesting cylindrical cells on the market: the BYD LFP 4680 cell. While BYD is well known for their large-format prismatic Blade cells, very few cylindrical LFP cells are on the market today, particularly in the 4680 format. These attributes made these cells an interesting design to investigate.

Overall, we found that these cells have excellent build quality, exhibiting minimal cell-to-cell variation. Their cell design also has some surprising features. Notably, these cells have a plastic support mandrel. Metallic mandrels were a common feature in the earliest cylindrical cells, but few modern cells contain them. Also, a significant amount of excess electrolyte is visible in the core of the cell, allowing for quantification of electrolyte consumption rates.

Overview of key cell features. Reproduced from Figure 3 of Liu et al. (link).

X-ray CT enables unparalleled insights into cell structure and variability when benchmarking a new cell design, and Glimpse enables unparalleled CT speed and image quality. Contact us to support your own cell benchmarking needs.