PEC has added onboard electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to its ICT0550 Integrated Cell Test System, enabling EIS characterization without a separate impedance analyzer or external cabling. The frequency sweep covers 15 mHz to 10 kHz at amplitudes up to ±5 A. DC-superposed and live measurement modes are supported.

The ICT0550 handles cylindrical, pouch, prismatic and coin cells on a single platform. A pallet-based sample handling system allows offline cell preparation and fast swaps between test runs to reduce downtime between cycles. Safety provisions include real-time monitoring, gas sampling, dual-vent protection and video surveillance of devices under test. Data management runs through PEC’s LifeTest software, which handles test tracking and traceability across sites.

EIS is used in cell development to measure internal impedance as a function of frequency, separating ohmic resistance, charge-transfer resistance and diffusion-related components. Integrating EIS into the cycling platform—rather than as a benchtop instrument wired in separately—removes a manual reconnection step and lets engineers run impedance sweeps at any point in a test sequence without interrupting the workflow. At 15 mHz, the sweep reaches timescales relevant for diffusion-limited processes; the ±5 A amplitude keeps the measurement perturbation small enough to be treated as linear for most cell chemistries.

Source: PEC