Featured New Study: Charging Lithium Ion Batteries at High Currents for the First Time is Good

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2024/08/20240830-slac.html
From the SLAC-Stanford Battery center, the very first charge for a Lithium Ion battery cell actually should be at a rather high currents which increased their average lifetime by 50%. Now I'm curious.

Darn, now that made me read the original article:
Researchers discover a surprising way to jump-start battery performance
Typically battery manufacturers use a low energy charge to try and control the SEI layer build up. It's also a slow and costly way to do this. So they went brute force and attempted to use up a large initial supply of lithium during the batteries first charge by creating the SEI (Solid Electrolyte Interphase) with very high currents.

I wasn't too keen on their analogy of comparing it to scooping out water from a bucket to keep it from spilling over. More than likely has something to do with getting the higher energy lithium ions to stick first in the SEI which prevents lower energy ones from clogging up the SEI and not migrating back to the positive electrode. Research isn't quite finished so I could be wrong. Lots of unknowns like how hot did the battery get, what was the cool down before discharging, and is this true for NMC, LiFePO4, NCA.

Special note - I wouldn't try this at home. Sounds like someone might try and use charge mode for the first time when they drive their Prime from the dealer or visit a fast charger for their EV. It has to be the first charge, not your first charge.

BTW this was funded by Toyota Research Institute.