(Invited) Improving Certainty in Battery Safety Profiles through Early-Stage Evaluation

Abstract

There is currently a great desire to reduce carbon emissions through electrification of all transportation sectors by utilizing battery energy storage. However, existing technology is unable to meet the performance target demands of certain transportation sectors (e.g., aviation). As a result, and due to a growing demand for conventional Li-ion battery materials, there is significant motivation to generate new battery technologies. During early-stage of development, the primary focus is demonstrating the achievement of performance metrics for the anticipated application. Once performance metrics have been demonstrated, the focus turns to scale-up. It isn’t until the later stages of development, perhaps even during the push for large scale manufacturing, that safety is more closely analyzed. At that stage, a significant amount of research dollars has been invested into that technology. To complicate matters, it is widely understood that the safety profile of large format cells (e.g., multi-layer pouch cells) can be significantly different than the safety profile of small format cells (e.g., coin cells) of the exact same chemistry. The work presented here examines the gap that exists in the understanding of a commercial-scale full cell's safety characteristics through a combination of characterization, experiments, and modeling using only information gained at the lab-scale, early-stage development (i.e., materials and small format cells). Characterization and experiment will be developed in such a way as to determine and quantify key metrics that will be utilized as modeling inputs. A modeling framework will utilize those key metrics to predict the large format safety profile of a specific chemistry. Experimental work, where cells are exposed to abusive conditions, will allow for the refinement of input parameters and refinement of the modeling framework to increase certainty in large format safety profile. This talk will highlight the planned approach to utilize a battery technology’s materials and small format cells to develop a picture of what may be expected in the safety profile of a large format cell.Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.