First Steps Towards the Design of a multi-Chemistry, multi-Battery State of Health Screening System

Local governments and battery manufacturers will have a serious problem once the batteries from first generation of electric vehicles will reach the End of Life. These batteries are retired because they do not comply with automotive safety regulations and transportation laws. Even so they still have about 80% of their initial capacity, which makes them suitable in other less demanding applications. However, they must first undergo an extensive evaluation to identify batteries with similar characteristics so that new battery packs can be made. This paper presents the development and testing of a multi-chemistry, multi-battery state of health screening system. The design is based on a bidirectional DC-DC cascaded Buck-Boost power converter that allows simultaneous testing of two or more cells, despite their chemistry.