BMINN: Learning chemical potentials and parameters from voltage data for multi-phase battery modeling

Journal article, 2026

Free-energy landscapes and chemical potentials govern the dynamics of phase transitions, transport, and stability in functional materials, yet they remain experimentally inaccessible under realistic operating conditions. Here we introduce a Bayesian model-integrated neural network (BMINN) that embeds physics-based formulations of non-autonomous partial differential–algebraic equations into probabilistic learning. This approach reconstructs hidden thermodynamics directly from macroscopic current–voltage data, providing quantitative access to metastable states, staging transitions, and energy barriers without synchrotron probes. Demonstrated on lithium–graphite electrodes, BMINN recovers full Gibbs free-energy landscapes with fidelity validated against operando X-ray diffraction. The framework generalizes across dynamical regimes, enabling accurate voltage prediction, internal state estimation, and inference of governing parameters. Beyond batteries, BMINN exemplifies a broadly applicable strategy for learning missing physics in multiphase, non-equilibrium systems, offering a new pathway to uncover hidden thermodynamic functions across condensed matter and materials physics.