Kudakwashe Chayambuka, PhD candidate Electrical Engineering

Understanding internal battery dynamics to build better batteries requires fast and reliable electrochemical-based simulation models. Electrode design, for specific power and energy applications, cannot rely on experimental trial and error because of material costs and time.
Traditionally, such models are based on the porous electrode theory, which was popularised by the seminal works of Newman and his collaborators. In this work, several improvements to the porous electrode theory are introduced while the underlying theory is further unravelled. The dilute solution theory is used to resolve the concentration, potential and current distribution in the electrolyte phase while particle phase concentrations are calculated based on the backward Euler finite difference method. Using optimised solution schemes to solve the coupled partial differential
equations, we are able to effi ciently resolve the multi-physics and multi-scale phenomena involved in sodium-ion battery simulations.

PUBLICATIONS
K. Chayambuka, G. Mulder, D. L. Danilov, and P. H. L. Notten, A modifi ed pseudo-steady-state analytical expression
for battery modeling, Solid State Communications (2019).
K. Chayambuka, G. Mulder, D. L. Danilov, and P. H. L. Notten, Sodium-ion battery materials and electrochemical
properties reviewed, Advanced Energy Materials (2018)