Insights for Safer and More Reliable Li-on batteries

Li-ion batteries find applications in a variety of fields such as electric mobility, portable electronics, and human space exploration, where their safe and dependable performance is critical.  Recent studies by NASA Johnson Space Center and University College London have examined the critical issue of thermal runaway¹ in lithium-ion batteries. This phenomenon involves various types of failure mechanisms, which can have devastating consequences such as explosions or fires.

Research in this area has been challenging due to the vast array of battery manufacturers and geometries, which exhibit different behaviors during thermal runaway. To address this challenge, a Fractional Thermal Runaway Calorimeter (FTRC) was developed to quantitatively evaluate thermal runaway energy release and provide insight into how heat distributes throughout a battery system during thermal runaway.

In this study, the team draw from the NASA Battery Failure Databank to explore the differences between failure mechanisms of different cell types tested under different abuse conditions, with respect to thermal behavior, mass ejected, and internal structural dynamics.

The data collected will help to elucidate the variability in cell responses to different abuse conditions and clarify the differences in behaviour observed for various cell geometries.

Using three cell geometries, the research team captured images at both ESRF, and at Diamond using a monochromatic beam on the I12 beamline. The cells were tested under three different trigger methods (thermal, IC and nail penetration).

Find out what they discovered.