Understanding Li-Ion Cell Internal Short Circuit and Thermal Runaway through Small, Slow and In Situ Sensing Nail Penetration

Huang, Shan; Du, Xiaoniu; Richter, Mark; Ford, Jared; Cavalheiro, Gabriel M.; Du, Zhijia; White, Robin T.; Zhang, Guangsheng

doi:10.1149/1945-7111/ab8878

Title: Understanding Li-Ion Cell Internal Short Circuit and Thermal Runaway through Small, Slow and In Situ Sensing Nail Penetration

Journal Article · Mon Apr 27 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Journal of the Electrochemical Society (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ab8878· OSTI ID:1616809

Huang, Shan ^[1]; Du, Xiaoniu ^[1]; Richter, Mark ^[1]; Ford, Jared ^[1]; Cavalheiro, Gabriel M. ^[1];

^[2];

^[3];

^[1]

Univ. of Alabama, Huntsville, AL (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Carl Zeiss RMS, Pleasanton, CA (United States)

Here we report a small, slow and in situ sensing (3S) nail penetration test method to understand Li-ion cell internal short circuit (ISC) and thermal runaway. The method not only keeps conventional nail penetration's advantage of simple implementation, but also enhances its relevance to field failures and enables detailed in situ diagnosis. It was applied to 3-Ah pouch cells and revealed insights that could not be captured by conventional methods. Most interestingly, multiple in situ temperature peaks were observed during a period of over 100 s before thermal runaway. These initial peaks exceeded safety limit but the temperature rapidly decreased after each peak instead of causing immediate thermal runaway. Further investigation suggested that the initial temperature peaks occurred when nail tip reached aluminum foil current collector to form a low resistance ISC between anode and aluminum foil. The rapid temperature decrease after each peak can be attributed to sudden drop of ISC current, which can be further attributed to rupture of aluminum foil and increase of contact resistance. The findings show that 3S nail penetration test can separate processes of ISC from thermal runaway and provide details of ISC at the level of individual electrode and current collector.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1616809

Journal Information:: Journal of the Electrochemical Society (Online), Vol. 167, Issue 9; ISSN 1945-7111

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 26 works

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