By Josh Perry, Editor
[email protected]

According to a recent article by Dr. Carlos Ziebert, head of the Battery Safety Center at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) Institute of Applied Materials – Applied Materials Physics (IAM-IWP), which was published by Scitech Europa, outlines the ways that research and testing in calorimeters has enhanced battery thermal management and safety.

Calorimeters are critical in studying thermal breakdowns in lithium-ion batteries. (Wikimedia Commons)

The KIT IAM-IWP operates the largest battery calorimeter lab in Europe, with six accelerating rate calorimeters (ARC) that vary in size from coin to automotive format to test the thermodynamic, thermal management, and safety data of lithium-ion cells.

The goal of the Battery Safety Center is to prevent thermal runaway that can cause a breakdown of the entire battery system with catastrophic results. Studying the impact of different conditions on battery performance has helped design batteries that are safer from the material- to cell-level.

“Sophisticated battery calorimetry combined with thermography allows for the discovery of new and quantitative correlations between different critical safety and thermally related parameters,” the article explained. “The temperature, heat and internal pressure evolution can be studied, while operating cells under conditions of normal use, abuse or accidents.”

Cells can be place in the ARC at the Battery Safety Center, which has heaters and thermocouples located in the lid and walls. The conditions can be adjusted to test the temperature of the cell surface or the reaction of the battery cell under worst-case scenarios. This also allows for the testing of aging, which is one of the main factors in thermal runaway.

“As a result of the different tests, quantitative and system relevant data for the temperature, heat and pressure development of materials and cells are provided,” Ziebert wrote. “These data can be used at all levels of the value chain, from safe design at the materials level up to the thermal management and adaption of safety systems or implementation into modelling and simulation tools.”

These tests will also be relevant as new battery technologies are developed, such as solid-state batteries, or new materials such as sodium or magnesium replace lithium.

Read the full article at https://www.scitecheuropa.eu/calorimeters-thermal-battery-safety/87925.