A review of lithium ion battery failure mechanisms and fire prevention strategies

Mitigating Thermal Runaway of Lithium-Ion Batteries

A review of lithium-ion battery safety concerns: The issues, strategies, and testing standards

Over the last decade, the electric vehicle (EV) has significantly changed the car industry globally, driven by the fast development of Li-ion battery technology. However, the fire risk and hazard associated with this type of high-energy battery has become a major safety concern for EVs. This review focuses on the latest fire-safety issues of EVs related to thermal runaway and fire in Li-ion batteries. Thermal runaway or fire can occur as a result of extreme abuse conditions that may be the result of the faulty operation or traffic accidents. Failure of the battery may then be accompanied by the release of toxic gas, fire, jet flames, and explosion. This paper is devoted to reviewing the battery fire in battery EVs, hybrid EVs, and electric buses to provide a qualitative understanding of the fire risk and hazards associated with battery powered EVs. In addition, important battery fire characteristics involved in various EV fire scenarios, obtained through testing, are analysed. The tested peak heat release rate (PHHR in MW) varies with the energy capacity of LIBs ($$E_{B}$$ in Wh) crossing different scales as $$PHRR = 2E_{B}^{0.6}$$. For the full-scale EV fire test, limited data have revealed that the heat release and hazard of an EV fire are comparable to that of a fossil-fuelled vehicle fire. Once the onboard battery involved in fire, there is a greater difficulty in suppressing EV fires, because the burning battery pack inside is inaccessible to externally applied suppressant and can re-ignite without sufficient cooling. As a result, an excessive amount of suppression agent is needed to cool the battery, extinguish the fire, and prevent reignition. By addressing these concerns, this review aims to aid researchers and industries working with batteries, EVs and fire safety engineering, to encourage active research collaborations, and attract future research and development on improving the overall safety of future EVs. Only then will society achieve the same comfort level for EVs as they have for conventional vehicles.

A review of battery fires in electric vehicles

Lithium (Li)-ion batteries have become the mainstream energy storage solution for many applications, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and smart grids. However, various faults in a Li-ion battery system (LIBS) can potentially cause performance degradation and severe safety issues. Developing advanced fault diagnosis technologies is becoming increasingly critical for the safe operation of LIBS. This article provides a comprehensive review of the mechanisms, features, and diagnosis of various faults in LIBSs, including internal battery faults, sensor faults, and actuator faults. Future trends in the development of fault diagnosis technologies for a safer battery system are presented and discussed.

Advanced Fault Diagnosis for Lithium-Ion Battery Systems: A Review of Fault Mechanisms, Fault Features, and Diagnosis Procedures

Failure mechanism of the lithium ion battery during nail penetration

Self-heating reaction and thermal runaway criticality of the lithium ion battery

The lithium ion battery has been widely used, but it has high fire risk due to its flammable materials. In this study, a series of combustion tests are conducted on the 18650-type lithium ion batteries using the modified cone calorimeter. The temperature and voltage variation of the battery, heat release rate and gas generation during combustion are measured in this study. The battery is heated evenly by the self-made heater, and the reliable trigger temperatures of thermal runaway are obtained for different states of charge (SOCs) batteries in this study. The fire behavior of the 100% SOC batteries is shown in this paper. The net heat absorption by the battery before thermal runaway is calculated based on the heat transfer theory. It ranges from 56.81 to 64.05 kJ for 0 to 100% SOC batteries, which shows a decreasing trend as SOC increases. The peak combustion heat release rate of 100% SOC batteries is 3.747 ± 0.858 kW. CH4 and CO gases are detected before and after thermal runaway. The generation of CO shows an increasing trend as SOC increases. Some suggestions on the early warning system of battery thermal runaway are proposed based on this study.

Qingsong Wang

Papers

A review of lithium ion battery failure mechanisms and fire prevention strategies

Failure mechanism of the lithium ion battery during nail penetration

Self-heating reaction and thermal runaway criticality of the lithium ion battery

Thermal runaway and fire behavior investigation of lithium ion batteries using modified cone calorimeter

Experimental and modeling analysis of jet flow and fire dynamics of 18650-type lithium-ion battery