Existence of solution to a system of PDEs modeling the crystal growth inside lithium batteries

Abstract: We study a model for lithium (Li) electrodeposition on Li-metal electrodes that leads to dendritic pattern formation. The model comprises of a system of three coupled PDEs, taking the form of an Allen--Cahn equation, a Nernst--Planck equation and a Poisson equation. We prove existence of a weak solution and stability results for this system and present numerical simulations resulting from a finite element approximation of the system, which illustrate the dendritic nature of solutions to the model.