NOVONIX Ultra-High Precision Coulometry (UHPC) is specialized battery testing equipment that measures the charge and discharge capacities and voltages of a battery with parts per million accuracy. The goal of UHPC is to determine the coulombic efficiency of cells with utmost precision and to allow for unique metrics such as charge end point capacity slippage, which give fast and unique insights into battery performance and degradation mechanisms. Through this level of precision control and measurement NOVONIX UHPC equipment enables researchers to detect and quantify very slow degradation mechanisms in a relatively short time, instead of waiting for hundreds of cycles for capacity loss to become apparent. UHPC hardware achieves this through exceptionally stable and precise current sources, high-resolution measurement electronics, and rigorous control of testing conditions (temperature, etc.), minimizing noise and drift in the measurements.
At NOVONIX, UHPC is a cornerstone technology for battery R&D. NOVONIX developed and commercialized UHPC equipment in partnership with Dr. Jeff Dahn’s research, and it remains the industry-leading system for high-precision battery life testing. NOVONIX employs UHPC to evaluate new materials and cell designs. By using various analysis tools available with UHPC, researchers can project long-term behaviors like capacity fade and lithium inventory loss much earlier than traditional cycling tests would reveal. This allows rapid screening of which materials or chemistries are more stable. Additionally, UHPC data helps identify where certain degradation modes occur in the cell, for example a sudden efficiency drop might indicate the onset of lithium plating. In summary, UHPC lets NOVONIX peer into the subtle electrochemical losses in batteries with unmatched clarity, accelerating the development of longer-lived batteries by guiding materials selection and cell design before obvious aging even occurs.
