norbert.wagner@dlr.de an o de
F a r a d a y ic a no de a n o d e s id e
proc es s * d o u b l e la y e r * po rou s
in s id e t h e c a p a c ita n c e d i s tr ib u te d
If a power generating device is examined, its dynamic p o ro u s
s y s te m
im p e d a n c e
In applications with dynamic load changes the induc- It is rather contaminated by dynamically induced
tive parts, for example in a laptop computer battery or error voltages. These errors are caused by unavoid-
in electromotive applications, are limiting the maxi- able mutual induction from the magnetic field of the
mum pulse load available. current circuit.
c a th o d e a rc
current. It depends on the geometry and grows with
the dimensions of the object. For the investigation of
a n o d e a rc power sources this means: The more you scale up,
the lower is the available upper frequency limit (fg).
Finally, there is a limit for the EIS at low ohmic ob-
jects. At a rough estimation you can calculate with:
L⋅ ω re a l p a rt
R fg ≈ 1 MHz * |Z|min / Ohm
a n o d e s id e c a th o d e s id e
p o ro u s to ta l to ta l
in d u c tiv e O h m ic
p o ro u s As a consequence, the window for getting an Ohmic
d is trib u te d d is trib u te d
im p e d a n c e s h a re lo s s im p e d a n c e resistance information by means of the EIS gets
smaller for bigger cells. For certain systems, the
L R window will be closed.
*
loa d o bjec t
∼
E
s tea dy s ta te
c u rre nt I
ze ro c urr en t
Z = I m p e d a n c e o f t h e O b je c t o f In t e r e s t
W i th th e E x te n s i o n s in S p a c e x , y , z .
C u rre n t line ar
∼ s tep ∆ E
E n o is e ∝ ω , x, y, z, I p o ten tial
u n de r loa d O hm ic s h are =
I n te r f e r in g ∆ E
Current Flow
P o te n ti a l
E n o is e 1 tim e o f I
in te rru p tio n T im e
Interesting
P otential
I n te r f e r in g
P o te n ti a l
E n o is e 2
A steady-state current is interrupted by a switch. The
step response of the potential is sampled and ana-
lysed assuming that the current drops instantane-
Fig. 3: Basic impedance measurement circuit – ously from its stationary value to zero.
principle (top) and detail (bottom)
In practice, the settling time depends on the electro-
A closer look at the circuit in figure 3 shows that the magnetic energy stored in the parasitic capacity and
potential information does not only contain the inter- inductivity of the cell arrangement on the one hand
esting part from the site of the connecting terminals. and the damping process on the other hand.
Provided that the set-up is built appropriate, the inter- spectrum and all parasitic effects can be analysed by
ruption results in a breakdown of the current to at means of EIS methods.
least small values within a short time. In this case,
total total
the potential will be disturbed much less by mutual porous damped
total
Ohmic
induction compared with an EIS measurement. distributed
impedance
inductive
share
share
*
fast rectangular step of the potential. For the evalua-
tion a linear step model is commonly used.
E /m V T im e / µ s C sw
R dmp R sw
0
-5 0 C sw,R : Capacitance
sw and resistance of the electronic switch.
R dmp: Damping of the inductive share due to spatial distribution.
-1 0 0
T im e
I E
-2 0 0 E (t)
10 15 20 I0 fro m
c alib ra tio n
I(t) E0 pro c e du re
Fig. 5: Typical current interrupt potential step response. 0
domain. The potential response signal E is sampled pared to the automatic minimum detection in the
by a transient recorder. scalar impedance function.
The numeric algorithms use discrete Fourier trans- Figure 10 is a sketch of the practical set-up of our
form methods to achieve an effective analysis. In high current interrupt measurement arrangement of a
order to minimize the errors caused by their applica- fuel cell. The electrochemical cell (A) is supplied by
tion on single events, a weighing function has to be means of an electronic load (B) or another type of
applied. At least, a Zoom FFT calculates the ampli- high power potentiostat to force the steady state load
tude spectrum in the frequency domain. A similar conditions. Additionally, the potentiostat acts as fast
procedure using a reference resistor was done for electronic switch for the current interruption.
calibration. The quotient of both spectra finally leads |impedance| / Ω
to the modulus of the impedance of the unknown 10m
object.
|impedance| / Ω
10m 1m
f0 f1
100u
1m 1K 10K 100K 1M 8M
frequency / Hz
Zmin ⇓
η
2 π dϕ
π η∫
100u ln | Z (η) | ≈ const. + ϕ (ω )d ln ω − ⋅ (η)
6 d ln ω
1K 10K 100K 1M 8M 0
frequency / Hz ⇓
Fig. 8: Automatic evaluation of the ohmic share from the phase ο
scalar impedance function. 90
the instrument in order to minimize electromagnetic We also found that the HCI worked fine with power
interference. On the other hand, it is responsible for generating devices. As an example, the results of an
the protection of the instrument input by means of an EIS and a HCI experiment at a high temperature fuel
energy consuming clipping circuit. cell are depicted in figure 12. The cell has been
driven with air and humidified hydrogen and gener-
After a short ‘sampling shot’ during the interrupt, the ated more than four Amperes at a potential exceeding
instrument switches on the current again, in order to 0.73 Volts. In both experiments the best case
re-establish the steady state and to avoid potential
damage of the cell. The pulse response is analyzed
then by the software of the workstation as described wiring was used to reduce the mutual induction con-
before. tribution.
impedance Ω
100m
10m Ω
30m
A
10m
10 1K 100K
frequency / Hz
Current load lines
Potential sense lines
Fig. 10: Practical set-up of a high current interrupt fuel cell phase ο
measurement arrangement
10m Ω
45
0
A lot of test experiments under controlled conditions
have been done. The major experience is that, com-
B -45
Conclusion
30m 1. EIS capabilities are basically limited by mutual
induction at the high-frequency low-impedance edge.
This falsifies significantly the results for ohmic and
10m
inductive share.
2. The HCI capability is limited by the magnetic en-
100m 10 1K 100K ergy stored in the load circuit.
fr e q u e n c y / H z 3. The HCI analysis can be automatically analyzed
reliably by transforming the time data into the fre-
Fig. 12: High current interrupt measurement of a single quency domain.
solid oxide fuel cell at 866°C. 4. According to our experience, HCI can extend the
EIS: 100 mHz – 100 kHz (rhombi) available frequency range about a factor of three to
HIC: 1 kHz – 800 kHz (circles) ten in a carefully optimized experimental set-up.
5. HCI data interpretation should not be extended to
The last example demonstrates that the dominating the low frequency response. The unavoidable viola-
error from the unavoidable mutual induction falsifies tion of the EIS linearity rule after a certain interruption
the result of standard EIS measurements at very low time may lead to misinterpretations.
impedance objects. In the experiments depicted in 6. Thus, an arrangement which performs both, the
figure 13, a HCI measurement (top) as well as a standard EIS and the HCI measurement within one
comparative EIS measurement (bottom, triangles) set-up, is the best choice for the challenges of elec-
trochemical power source device testing.
E /m V T im e / µ s
-5 0
A B
-1 0 0
-1 5 0
-2 0 0
0 2 0 0 4 0 0 6 0 0 8 0 0
im p e d a n c e Ω
For N. American support contact:
3 m PHIL WOLF
C D TEST SOLUTIONS
1 m 5665 Hwy 9 N, Ste. 103-181
Alpharetta GA 30004
USA
3 0 0 u
T: 770-410-9166
1 0 0 m 1 0 1 K 1 0 0 K
fre q u e n c y / H z
F: 443-947-0745
C: 678-231-5783
phil@test-solutions.biz
Fig. 13: High current interrupt measurement of a single
PEM fuel cell at 85° C and 80 A. The resulting spectrum http://www.test-solutions.biz
(C) is compared with a standard EIS (D).