Using Adiabatic and Isothermal Calorimetry to Measure the Heat Associated with Cycling Lithium Rechargeable Batteries and Their Thermal Runaways

摘要

Adiabatic calorimetry has been used for decades in the chemical process safety field to measure thermal runaway. More recently it has been applied to studying the thermal decomposition of cells as it provides a "worst case" or adiabatic scenario in measuring thermal runaway within a cell. Thermal runway of cells continues to be a major concern in the designing and implementation of Li-ion technology to mobile power applications. These runaways can occur for a variety of reasons due to internal or external shorting of a cell/pack or from the mechanical impact due to crushing or penetration. Understanding how these thermal runaway events occur and the resultant temperature and pressure changes within the cell is critical in designing safety systems to reduce the likelihood and/or mitigate the consequence of such thermal failures.