Consistency sorting of retired lithium-ion batteries: From the perspective of maximizing remaining useful discharge

Wenjun Fan, Xueyuan Wang, Yongjun Yuan, Xiao Zhou, Bo Jiang, Long Qian, Xuezhe Wei and Haifeng Dai

Applied Energy, 2026, vol. 402, issue PB, No S0306261925017763

Abstract: Given the promising potential of retired lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for echelon utilization, enhancing their consistency through effective sorting has become essential. Existing research remains limited to coarse screening, lacking effective experimental validation and quantitative evaluation, failing to meet the grouping requirements. This study presents an integrated framework addressing both verification and evaluation challenges in retired LIB sorting. First, we develop a computational aging method that simulates series module aging behavior by combining cell cycling data under identical operating conditions, circumventing the need for repeated physical regrouping while maximizing data utility. Second, remaining useful discharge (RUD) is proposed as a novel indicator considering long-term degradation evolution, with module RUD utilization rate quantitatively assessing aging consistency. Leveraging these foundations, a rapid battery consistency sorting method based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is established. The EIS feature, identified through permutation feature importance (PFI) analysis and subsequently dimensionality reduced through principal component analysis (PCA), is combined with greedy sliding window algorithm to enable precise regrouping of retired batteries. This approach achieves superior performance, with average module RUD utilization rate of 87.50 % for 4-series modules and 79.09 % for 7-series modules. This method achieves an optimal trade-off compared to sorting approaches based on remaining capacity and remaining useful life, offering primary advantages in reduced testing time, deterministic regrouping outcomes, and effective mitigation of aging path divergence. The proposed solution injects new impetus into an efficient and economical sorting process in echelon utilization

Keywords: Retired lithium-ion batteries; Echelon utilization; Consistency sorting; Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261925017763
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:402:y:2026:i:pb:s0306261925017763

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.127046

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().