System and method of mitigating high-temperature, high-charge gas swelling of battery of portable electronic device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9406980-B2
Application number	US-201314034673-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 24, 2013
Priority date	Sep 24, 2013
Publication date	Aug 2, 2016
Grant date	Aug 2, 2016

Abstract

A method mitigates or even prevents gas swelling of a battery of a portable electronic device at high temperatures and states of charge of the battery. The method comprises: receiving “temperature” and “state of charge” signals, which are functions of a temperature and state of charge of the battery, respectively; determining, as corresponding functions of the “temperature” and “state of charge” signals, whether the temperature is within an elevated operating-temperature range and the state of charge is within an elevated state-of-charge range; cycle-forming the battery a predetermined number of cycles; and terminating the “cycle-forming” operation of the battery when the pre-determined number of cycles is reached.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of mitigating gas swelling of a battery of a portable electronic device comprising:
receiving a “temperature” signal that is a function of a temperature of the battery;
receiving a “state of charge” signal that is a function of a state of charge of the battery;
determining whether the temperature is within an elevated operating-temperature range;
determining whether the state of charge is within an elevated state-of-charge range in response to determining that the temperature is within the elevated operating-temperature range;
responsive to determining that the temperature is within the elevated operating-temperature range and the state of charge of the battery is within the elevated state-of-charge range, cycle-forming the battery a predetermined number of cycles to mitigate gas swelling of the battery;
terminating the “cycle-forming” operation of the battery when the pre-determined number of cycles is reached; and
maintaining the state of charge at or below a normal state of charge so long as the temperature is within or above the elevated operating-temperature range, the normal state of charge being about seventy percent and the elevated operating-temperature range being about 80° C. to 90° C.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the predetermined number of cycles is between about one and about four “0.7 C Charge” and “1 C Discharge”.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the “temperature” signal includes receiving the “temperature” signal from a temperature sensor coupled to the battery.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising preventing the battery from exceeding the normal state of charge when the temperature is within or above the elevated operating-temperature range.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
responsive to determining that the battery's state of charge is within the elevated state of charge range, automatically terminating charging the battery if the battery's temperature exceeds 80° C., wherein the elevated state-of-charge range is about ninety percent to about one-hundred percent; and
maintaining the battery at or below the normal state of charge so long as the temperature is at or above 80° C.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the battery is a lithium-polymer battery, the lithium-polymer battery being one of a removable battery or a non-removable battery embedded in the portable electronic device.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein a voltage of the battery is about 4.35 V.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method is performed at least one of on a first “charge” sequence of the battery and when the battery has not been used for an extended period of time lasting at least three consecutive days, a user of the personal electronic device is advised to electrically couple the battery to an auxiliary charging device such that the battery is receiving power from the auxiliary charging device, the user inputs a desired period of time for cycle-forming the battery, the battery is charged and discharged as many cycles as possible during the time period, and the battery is targeted to be fully charged upon termination of the time period.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the first “charge” sequence of the battery substantially coincides with a first night of use of the personal electronic device by the user, the desired time period substantially coincides with a number of hours of sleep by the user through the first night, and the termination of the time period substantially coincides with awakening of the user from the sleep.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein each cycle of cycle-forming the battery comprises charging the battery:
starting from a substantially “minimum” state of charge;
increasing to a substantially “maximum” state of charge; and
returning to the substantially “minimum” state of charge.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, when five or less cycle-forming operations have been performed on the battery since being installed on the portable electronic device, preventing the battery's state of charge from exceeding 70% when the battery's temperature exceeds 50° C.

12. A portable electronic device comprising:
a processor electrically coupled to a temperature sensor;
a battery electrically coupled to the processor and temperature sensor; and
a power-management sub-system controlled by the processor,
wherein, to mitigate gas swelling of the battery, the processor:
receives a “temperature” signal that is a function of a temperature of the battery and a “state of charge” signal that is a function of a state of charge of the battery;
determines whether the temperature is within an elevated operating-temperature range and whether the state of charge is within an elevated state-of-charge range;
controls the power-management sub-system to cycle-form the battery a predetermined number of cycles in response to determining that the temperature is within the elevated operating-temperature range and the state of charge is within the elevated state-of-charge range;
terminates the “cycle-forming” operation of the battery when the pre-determined number of cycles is reached; and
maintains the state of charge at or below a normal state of charge so long as the temperature is within or above the elevated operating-temperature range, the normal state of charge being about seventy percent and the elevated operating-temperature range being about 80° C. to 90° C.

13. The portable electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the portable electronic device comprises further the temperature sensor.

14. A computer-readable medium having computer-readable instructions stored on the computer-readable medium for execution of the computer-readable instructions by a processor to mitigate gas swelling of a battery of a portable electronic device by:
receiving a “temperature” signal that is a function of a temperature of the battery;
receiving a “state of charge” signal that is a function of a state of charge of the battery;
determining whether the temperature is within an elevated operating-temperature range;
determining whether the state of charge is within an elevated state-of-charge range in response to determining that the temperature is within the elevated operating-temperature range;
responsive to determining that the temperature is within the elevated operating-temperature range and the state of charge of the battery is within the elevated state-of-charge range, cycle-forming the battery a predetermined number of cycles to mitigate gas swelling of the battery;
terminating the “cycle-forming” operation of the battery when the pre-determined number of cycles is reached; and
maintaining the state of charge at or below a normal state of charge so long as the temperature is within or above the elevated operating-temperature range, the normal state of charge being about seventy percent and the elevated operating-temperature range being about 80° C. to 90° C.

15. A method of mitigating gas swelling of a battery of a portable electronic device comprising:
receiving a “temperature” signal that is a function of a temperature of the battery;
receiving a “state of charge” signal that is a function of a state of charge of the battery;
determining whether the temperature is within an elevated operating-temperature range;
determining whether the state of charge is within an elevated state-of-charge range in response to determining that the temperature is within the elevated operating-temperature range;
mitigating gas swelling of the battery by actively discharging the battery to a predetermined amount of charge in response to the t

Assignees

• Blackberry Ltd

Inventors

• Sengupta Surajit
• Feng Yu William
• Brubacher Jonathan Quinn
• Patino Joseph

Classifications

• H02J7/875

  Charging or discharging for charge maintenance, battery initiation or rejuvenation · CPC title

• H02J7/977

  of the battery · CPC title

• H01M10/4257

  Smart batteries, e.g. electronic circuits inside the housing of the cells or batteries · CPC title

• H01M10/443 Primary

  in response to temperature · CPC title

• H01M2010/4271

  Battery management systems including electronic circuits, e.g. control of current or voltage to keep battery in healthy state, cell balancing · CPC title