A comprehensive investigation on the thermal and toxic hazards of large format lithium-ion batteries with LiFePO4 cathode

Yang Peng; Lizhong Yang; Xiaoyu Ju; Baisheng Liao; Kai Ye; Lun Li; Bei Cao; Yong Ni

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.120916

A comprehensive investigation on the thermal and toxic hazards of large format lithium-ion batteries with LiFePO₄ cathode

J Hazard Mater. 2020 Jan 5:381:120916. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.120916. Epub 2019 Jul 24.

Authors

Yang Peng¹, Lizhong Yang², Xiaoyu Ju¹, Baisheng Liao¹, Kai Ye¹, Lun Li¹, Bei Cao¹, Yong Ni¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. Electronic address: yanglz@ustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 31387075
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.120916

Abstract

Toxic gases released from lithium-ion battery (LIB) fires pose a very large threat to human health, yet they are poorly studied, and the knowledge of LIB fire toxicity is limited. In this paper, the thermal and toxic hazards resulting from the thermally-induced failure of a 68 Ah pouch LIB are systematically investigated by means of the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and 1/2 ISO full scale test room. The LIBs with higher state of charge (SOC) are found to have greater fire risks in terms of their burning behavior, normalized heat release rate, and fire radiation, as well as the concentration of toxic gases. Specifically, the thermal hazards are evaluated by combining the effects of convective and radiative heat. The major toxic gases detected from the online analysis are CO, HF, SO₂, NO₂, NO and HCl. Furthermore, Fractional Effective Dose (FED) and Fractional Effective Concentration (FEC) models are used to quantitatively assess the overall gas toxicity. Results show that the effects of irritant gases are much more significant than those of asphyxiant gases. HF and SO₂ have much greater toxicity than the other fire gases. The maximum FEC value is approaching the critical threshold in such fire scenarios.

Keywords: Lithium-ion battery; heat release rate; quantitative assessment; thermal hazards; toxicity evaluation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't