Reading · quiz · 15 min
Battery basics
What a battery does, cell versus module versus pack, the six numbers on a datasheet, and how this course works.
Free course · Beginner
Battery Cell Foundations
Learn how a lithium-ion cell is built, how it is rated, how it is manufactured and why it ages — through short readings, interactive labs and practice quizzes.
Offered by Lemonergy · Open source under the AGPL
- 7 lessons
- 4 core, 3 optional, and a final exam
- Beginner level
- no battery background needed
- About 5 hours
- at your own pace
- Free
- email sign-up, nothing to install
What you’ll learn
- Trace electron and lithium-ion paths through a cell during charge and discharge.
- Calculate current, C-rate, ideal duration and energy with correct units.
- Follow a lithium-ion cell from slurry mixing to formation, aging and testing.
- Connect an operating condition to a degradation mechanism and a measurable signal.
Skills you’ll gain
- Cell anatomy
- C-rate calculations
- Electrode manufacturing
- Formation and aging
- Solid-state electrolytes
- Degradation mechanisms
- Arrhenius analysis
Chapter 1 · Syllabus
There are 7 lessons in this course
Take the core lessons in order. Optional lessons go deeper into the lesson before them.
- Core path — required to finish the chapter
- Deeper view — optional, goes further into the lesson before it
- Toolkit — how the lessons are built, not what they teach
Start lesson
Reading · interactive workbench · quiz · 35 min
Cell anatomy and charge/discharge paths
Name every part of a cell, follow electrons and lithium ions on discharge and charge, and see what an internal short is.
Reading · interactive tutorial · quiz · 40 min
Lithium-ion cell architecture
Zoom into porous electrodes, the separator and the electrolyte, and see why porosity trades energy for power.
Reading · calculators · quiz · 25 min
Nominal capacity and C-rate
Connect capacity, current, ideal duration and energy with worked examples, three calculators and a practice quiz.
Prefer Python? Run the notebook.
Reading · production simulator · quiz · 60 min
Lithium-ion cell production
Walk the line from mixing and coating through the dry room to formation, aging and testing, and link each step to cell quality.
Reading · route simulator · quiz · 45 min
All-solid-state cell production
Compare oxide, sulfide, halide and polymer electrolytes, and see which production steps disappear and which appear.
Reading · 9 interactive panels · quiz · 70 min
Battery aging
See how degradation mechanisms change capacity, impedance and self-discharge with temperature and cycling.
Prefer Python? Run the notebook.
Browser editor
CellForge layout editor
Reposition, rename and resize the machine diagrams Lesson 3 draws, or start a new process step from the template.
Lessons · Python models
Equivalent Circuit Models
From terminal-voltage conventions and OCV to R0, one-RC and multiple-RC models, identification and validation.
More to explore
Labs and reference
Interactive lab
Electrode potentials and battery materials
Build a Zn/Cu cell, change voltage references, see the water stability window and compare electrode materials.
Reading · calculator
Fick’s first law
Compute a diffusive flux with the right units and sign, and see what the law leaves out. Prefer Python? Run the notebook.
Interactive labs
The labs from the lessons, full screen
The cell anatomy workbench, the cell architecture tutorial, and the two production simulators, CellForge and SolidForge.
Final exam
Finish with the final exam
Twenty questions across the whole course, marked in your browser. Pass and print a statement of completion.
Reference
Cheat sheet
The formulas, rules and typical numbers from the course on one printable page.
Reference
Battery glossary
55 battery terms in plain language, each linked to the lesson that teaches it.
How this course works
Learn, practice, track your progress
Learn
Short readings and interactive labs. Every lesson states its assumptions, units and limits.
Practice
Every lesson has practice questions. Numeric ones are marked in your browser with fresh numbers each time; written answers you check against a model answer.
Track
Mark lessons complete and see your progress on the syllabus. It stays in your browser. A free sign-up with your email opens the labs, quizzes and exam.