(124e) Self-Quenching Battery Pack: D3 Concept of Detect, Direct, and Douse to Contain Thermal Runaway

Battery pack safety following an individual cell runaway is an important multidisciplinary topic to address as we pack more energy and power into a small volume and mass. Fluid flow is an important aspect to not only cool the battery under normal operation but can be leveraged to dissipate the heat rapidly in case of thermal runaway. Thermal runaway incidents are extremely rare but can be catastrophic. The runaway can be triggered by local overcharge, thermal or mechanical abuse.

In this talk, we will first go into the details of thermal runaway initiation and propagation. Second, solution to quench the thermal runaway from propagating within the cell through a novel and passive detection of incipient thermal runaway temperature via thermoplastics will be introduced; and that is followed by discussion on the coolant release trigger to quench the runaway. In addition, this solution prevents propagation from cell- to-cell and reduce the chance for secondary combustion. This solution also leverages the fast thermal conductivity that is offered by the Cu and Al current collectors within the cell. The role of current collectors in relaying the information from the source of thermal runaway to the surface of the new format cell will be discussed. Furthermore, canonical simulations of the thermal runaway and quenching will be presented to provide insights into the runaway and mitigation but also to establish design rules.

The solution proposed here is chemistry agnostic and can be adapted to applications such as in transportation of cells and packs, grid energy storage, and mobility. The talk concludes by describing the next steps and value chain partnerships to make this safer solution a reality.

Below is an image that shows the self-quenching battery concept.