Cooperative research on safety fundamentals of lithium batteries

A cooperative research program on the thermal characterization and safety o f lithium batteries is being carried out at IIT/Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering and Tohoku University. This research includes exper imental work for commercial Lithium secondary batteries and performance pre diction for scaled-up batteries. In this work, we present a set of thermal characterization experiments for Lithium secondary battery cells under norm al and abuse conditions. These show that the rise in cell temperature depen ds strongly on cell, chemistry as well as discharge rate. Computer simulati on of the cycling of scaled-up Lithium batteries shows that the cell temper ature profile also depends strongly on the surface cooling rate. An effecti ve thermal management system is required to operate these batteries safely. This paper reviews the basic information needed for intrinsically safe des ign. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.