Enabling the electrochemical simulation of Li-ion battery electrodes with anisotropic tortuosity in COMSOL Multiphysics(Ⓡ)

Li-ion battery electrodes, such as widely used graphite anodes, may have anisotropic tortuosity due to the non-equiaxed shape of the active material particles and the post-casting calendaring process. Such anisotropy can be ignored in conventional electrodes because all the macroscopic ion transport occurs along the electrode thickness, making the ion transport effectively one dimensional. However, the anisotropy becomes important to consider with three-dimensional architectures, such as those generated by laser-patterning. COMSOL Multiphysics(Ⓡ) • The existing Li-ion battery model in COMSOL 5.4 was extended to account for the anisotropy in the electrode tortuosity; • The extended model is necessary to accurately simulate the electrochemical dynamics of 3D architectures such as Highly ordered laser-patterned electrode (HOLE); • The testing and validation results are included in this work.