Gas explosions and thermal runaways during external heating abuse of commercial lithium-ion graphite-LiCoO2 cells at different levels of ageing
Journal article, 2018

Commercial 6.8 Ah lithium-ion cells with different ageing/status have been abused by external heating in an oven. Prior to the abuse test, selected cells were aged either by C/2 cycling up to 300 cycles or stored at 60 °C. Gas emissions were measured by FTIR and three separate vents were identified, two well before the thermal runaway while the third occurred simultaneously with the thermal runaway releasing heavy smoke and gas. Emissions of toxic carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen fluoride (HF) and phosphorous oxyfluoride (POF3) were detected in the third vent, regardless if there was a fire or not. All abused cells went into thermal runaway and emitted smoke and gas, the working cells also released flames as well as sparks. The dead cells were however less reactive but still underwent thermal runaway. For about half of the working cells, for all levels of cycle ageing, ignition of the accumulated battery released gases occurred about 15 s after the thermal runaway resulting in a gas explosion. The thermal runaway temperature, about 190 °C, varied somewhat for the different cell ageing/status where a weak local minimum was found for cells cycled between 100 and 200 times.

Gas explosion

Thermal runaway

Safety

Lithium-ion

Gas emission

Ageing

Author

Carl Fredrik Larsson

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

Simon Bertilsson

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

Maurizio Furlani

University of Gothenburg

Ingvar Albinsson

University of Gothenburg

Bengt-Erik Mellander

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

Journal of Power Sources

0378-7753 (ISSN)

Vol. 373 220-231

Subject Categories

Materials Engineering

Physical Sciences

Areas of Advance

Transport

Energy

DOI

10.1016/j.jpowsour.2017.10.085

More information

Latest update

3/19/2018