Research

Electrochemical Application For
Advanced Energy System Labortary.

Battery thermal runaway

Thermal Runaway

Lithium-ion batteries are made of various metallic compounds(anode and cathode material) and organic compounds(electrolyte), hence, they are not stable and very vulnerable to many types of abuse conditions from outside. If any external abuse condition is applied to a lithium-ion battery, it causes an internal chemical reaction, which leads to a chain reaction and rapid temperature rise. This phenomenon is called as thermal runaway. Once it happens, there are hardly any measures to stop temperature increase and a fire.

  • Researching various abuse conditions causing thermal runaway of lithium-ion battery

  • Measuring mass fraction and mass flow rate of vent gases during thermal runaway

  • Performing charging/discharging experiment to determine electrochemical parameters of lithium-ion battery

  • Thermal runaway and electrochemical heat generation modeling using CFD through the data of experiments

Energy Storage System(ESS) Fire

Energy storage system(ESS) is an efficient means of storing large amount of electricity. It usually consists of lithium-ion batteries, which can be charged/discharged freely. Lithium-ion batteries have many advantages, however, also sometimes cause a dangerous safety problem, which is a fire. The main reason is “thermal runaway”.

We have to study on ESS fire because of several reasons below:

  • To prevent a fire of ESS by analyzing various factors causing thermal runaway

  • To establish how to manage fire extinguishing facilities to stop a fire spread, and escape safely

  • To minimize economical loss due to limited operation of ESS(SOC limitation, etc.) by identifying exact reasons of a fire

Fire experiment of lithium-ion battery