Toxicity, Emissions and Structural Damage from Lithium-Ion Battery Thermal Runaway

Abstract

Toxicity, emissions and structural damage results on lithium-ion battery (LIB) thermal runaway triggered by the electrothermal method were performed in this work. The electrothermal triggering method was determined to study the thermal runaway behaviors of three types of commercial LIBs. The structural damage of the cathode material of the batteries after thermal runaway was observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that as the state of charge (SOC) of the battery increases, the lower the temperature at which thermal runaway occurs, and the more badly the structural damage of the electrode material after thermal runaway. Qualitative analysis of products from LIBs thermal runaway emissions was conducted by GC-MS, and the toxicity and formation mechanism of the emissions were analyzed in detail. Dozens of toxic substances were detected from the emissions after thermal runaway of batteries using LixNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 and LiCoO2 as the cathode material, the types of toxic substances increase gradually with the increase in the SOC, while as for batteries using LiFePO4 as the cathode material, most types of toxic substances were detected from 30% SOC.