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Cell equalizer for recycling batteries from hybrid electric vehicles

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Abstract

The rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) has resulted in increases in battery toxic waste. Although the powering and capacity characteristics of batteries deteriorate after use in EVs and HEVs, they usually retain enough potential for reuse as power sources in home energy systems, whose power requirements are much lower than those of EVs and HEVs. This study proposes an active cell equalizer that balances the state of charge (SOC) of nickel–metal hybrid (NiMH) batteries recycled from HEVs. In the proposed cell equalizer, two different circuits, e.g., a generation control circuit (GCC) and a power-decoupling circuit are integrated. Excessive energy is automatically transferred from a high-SOC cell to a low-SOC cell through the GCC. The power-decoupling circuit lowers the power pulsation caused by the single-phase DC/AC inverter. This reduces the low-frequency ripple current flowing into the battery pack, ensures safe operation and prolongs the lifecycle of the batteries. A prototype circuit with a three-stage battery pack is implemented in the discharging state and the obtained experimental results are analyzed to verify the equalizer functionality.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially support by “Higher Engineering Education Development” Project—Research and Development of Power Electronics and Industrial Automation (J14C16).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan

    Turmandakh Bat-Orgil & Toshihisa Shimizu

  2. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

    Turmandakh Bat-Orgil & Bayasgalan Dugarjav

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  1. Turmandakh Bat-Orgil
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  2. Bayasgalan Dugarjav
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  3. Toshihisa Shimizu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Toshihisa Shimizu.

Appendix

Appendix

A comparison of the proposed cell equalizer with the different cell-balancing methods in terms of the balancing speed, equalization accuracy, number of components and control complexity is given in Table 5. As mentioned in an early section of this paper, the active power-decoupling circuit is combined with the existing cell-equalizing circuit in this study. Although the equalizing speed, time required to reach the complete equalization, and number of components are the same as those of the buck–boost type cell-balancing circuit, the proposed circuit can achieve the safe utilization of the retired batteries since it can reduce the power pulsation caused by the single-phase inverter while equalizing.

Table 5 Comparison of the proposed cell equalizer with the existing circuits
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Bat-Orgil, T., Dugarjav, B. & Shimizu, T. Cell equalizer for recycling batteries from hybrid electric vehicles. J. Power Electron. 20, 811–822 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43236-020-00064-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43236-020-00064-0

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