The European Commission publishes Lithium-ion Battery Safety Report

Safety is a factor that lithium-ion battery manufacturers, integrators and users consider of utmost importance, particularly in relation to the electronic mobility sector.

One of the risks of possible internal failure at the level of the cells have to do with heat generation, giving rise to what is known as thermal runaway – understood as the chain reaction of a self-accelerating degenerative process due to the heat generated by the process itself, finally resulting in an explosion and/or fire.

CIDETEC Energy Storage has been working for some time on the characterisation and understanding of the phenomena involved in thermal runaway, among other factors affecting battery safety, and hence avails of specific equipment: an adiabatic calorimeter with a safety bunker.

To minimise the effects of a thermal runaway event, it is of capital importance to control and minimise the propagation of heat between the cells of a module or battery pack in order to isolate the consequences of the catalytic event as far as possible.

To deal with this sensitive issue, the European Commission organised a technical workshop last 8 – 9 March 2018 in Petten (The Netherlands). This workshop, which was participated in by different European and American experts on the subject, was attended by our colleague César Gutiérrez, who shared his experience on the matter as manager of the CIDETEC Energy Storage Battery Testing Laboratory.

The interesting final report of this workshop was recently placed at public disposal at the following link:

https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/event/workshop/workshop-safer-li-ion-batteries-preventing-thermal-propagation