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Explosion-Proof Lithium-Ion Battery Shuts Down At High Temperatures (thestack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the graceful-failure dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have designed a lithium-ion battery that self-regulates according to temperature, to prevent itself from overheating. Reaching extreme temperatures, the battery is able to shut itself down, only restarting once it has cooled. The researchers designed the battery to shut down and restart itself over a repeated heating and cooling cycle, without compromising performance. A polyethylene film is applied to one of the electrodes, which expands and shrinks depending on temperature, to create a conductive/non-conductive material.

63 comments

  1. Battery restarting please wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Installing update 1 of 20... Please don't disconnect the battery from power.

  2. Re:Explosion proof? by MightyYar · · Score: 1

    We'll be wrapping warships in these.

    And the Dreamliner will want to relocate it's black boxes inside of the battery array.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  3. Re:What about by Racemaniac · · Score: 2

    If you had read to the end of the summary, you would have noticed that it's a passive film that stops conducting if it gets too hot.

  4. Been done by pcjunky · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you take apart most Li-Ion battery packs from laptops you will find a thermistor. This is to help prevent the battery from overheating while charging/discharging. Nothing new here except perhaps they are putting them in smaller single cell Li-Ion batteries like cell phone batteries.

    1. Re:Been done by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you take apart most Li-Ion battery packs from laptops you will find a thermistor. This is to help prevent the battery from overheating while charging/discharging.

      More accurately, it is to help the charger not explode the batteries by charging them too quickly. It's usually used for no other purpose although it's not that unusual for a laptop to tap into it to also report the battery temperature. This is also typically done in power packs for cordless tools. Most of them don't have any kind of over-current protection, though. You can overheat them by misusing the tool, and for the same reason, laptop batteries can combust when one cell goes bad. The idea here is to prevent that by simply shutting off the battery when one cell goes tits up. There's a charge controller in the pack, but there's not a discharge controller.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Been done by hey! · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Well, it's hardly news that Li-ion batteries have a variety of safety features built in. When I was an MIT student back in the 70s Li-ion was exotic tech that you took extreme precautions with. Today Li-ion cells have got so many layers of belts and suspenders it's perfectly safe to be carrying a 3500 mAh battery in your pocket -- as I am dong right now.

      But as effective safety measures are, that's not quite the same as having an inherently safe cell. An inherently safe cell could well end up being cheaper, for one thing, or easier to scale to large sizes with the same safety margins. Of course most interesting inventions come to nothing, but fundamental improvements in the basic architecture of a common type of cell could potentially alter the economics of electric vehicles, for example.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:Been done by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Nothing new here

      Do you say that with a straight face out of ignorance or are you trying to be funny?

      The new thing here is that the lithium pack itself becomes self regulating against the problems that can cause them to suddenly bust into flames and not reliant on external circuitry. That is assuming your made in China to a price piece of garbage even has the basic required protection circuits in place. Many don't. But more importantly this would allow for far safer handling of lithium cells themselves. Such things are widely used and shipped around the world. Not every lithium battery comes in a pack with 5+ electric connections and charging circuits, overcurrent protection, fire protection all built in and with a Dell logo slapped on the surface.

    4. Re:Been done by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you take apart most Li-Ion battery packs from laptops you will find a thermistor. This is to help prevent the battery from overheating while charging/discharging. Nothing new here except perhaps they are putting them in smaller single cell Li-Ion batteries like cell phone batteries.

      LiPos have them as well for the same reason.

      But this isn't a thermistor that controls a circuit - it's a new cell construction technique that basically has the cell turn itself off when it gets too hot, not externally via a circuit (that may or may not exist, or may be defeated because the Chinese maker of the pack wanted to save a buck).

      Yes, counterfeit battery packs exist, and they often are missing the safety circuits as well as using dodgy cells. While there are often very good 3rd party suppliers of battery packs, there are dozens more dodgy sellers of questionable quality 3rd party packs ready and willing to sell you incendiary devices. Probably the reason why those "hoverboards" we see keep catching on fire.

      So having the cell be able to protect itself would provide a big increase in safety if you ever find yourself stuck using some crappy quality 3rd party battery packl

  5. Re:What about by RghtHndSd · · Score: 2

    There needs to be a mod option "Wrong".

  6. Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    It would seem that having the entire battery shut down quickly in response to heat could be a bad thing if you are running only on battery power at that time. Would it be possible to set it up to only shut down some of the battery so that the system could power down safely?

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by laurencetux · · Score: 1

      this is at the cell level basically this is wedged between the battery and the anode.

      i would hope that your device has some sort of temp monitor to give you some warning

      (Warning Battery temp over safe limit SHUTDOWN NOW!)

    2. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It would seem that having the entire battery shut down quickly in response to heat could be a bad thing if you are running only on battery power at that time.

      It would seem that having the entire battery burst into flames in response to heat could be a bad thing at any time

    3. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by damn_registrars · · Score: 2

      i would hope that your device has some sort of temp monitor to give you some warning

      That is a really good point. I can't say I routinely check to see what my battery temperature is at:

      >acpi -t

      Thermal 0: ok, 58.0 degrees C

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    4. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by sjames · · Score: 1

      Battery packs are usually wired series parallel in a laptop, so you would see a sudden loss in remaining power rather than a sudden shutdown. For though, it might just power down suddenly unless you have two battery packs in parallel.

    5. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by PPH · · Score: 2

      shut down quickly in response to heat could be a bad thing

      Right in the middle of a Call of Duty session and the laptop shuts down. You'd have to abort the mission and lose who knows how many points. Complete disaster.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    6. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      to you, (-1, snarky).

      Some of us do actual work on laptops. A lot of people are connected via laptop and wireless internet to the office on a nearly 24x7 time frame now. Even when we aren't within range of an internet connection, we still have documents to update; presentations and spreadsheets are still largely a disaster to update on anything smaller than an actual laptop with a physical keyboard.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    7. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If spreadsheets are enough to overheat your laptop you have bigger problems than some lost work

    8. Re:Can it be done effectively on a per-cell basis? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It would seem that having the entire battery shut down quickly in response to heat could be a bad thing if you are running only on battery power at that time.

      Not as bad as having your computer catch fire.

      Would it be possible to set it up to only shut down some of the battery so that the system could power down safely?

      Maybe. It depends on what kind of voltage monitoring your laptop is doing of your pack. It is technically possible to build per-cell voltage monitoring into the system, and this is in fact not incredibly unusual. Hell, "spare" ADC pins on homebrew "drone" flight controllers are often used for just this purpose — just add a JST-HX connector to your system and you can plug in not just the power connector but also the balanced charging connector and monitor each cell in the pack; since each cell tops out under 4V there's no need for any additional hardware like there is for full-battery monitoring, whether that's a dedicated IC or just a typical resistor-based voltage divider. Many laptops actually have unused pins on their monitor ICs, so even ones which do not do this now could do it relatively cheaply provided there's room to route the traces. If they detected a fault in a particular cell, they could warn you and then disable the display, drop to a minimum power state, and hibernate. Then you could plug in an adapter at your leisure.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Re: What about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or even read some of the comments. Wow, commenting without reading the article, the summary, OR the comments! This is some Reddit-tier posting.

  8. Re:What about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good question. Once the polyethylene starts melting, it's game over.
    Besides, it will ony be effective in reducing the temperature when it's linked with external current flow. Internal short circuit (remember those pesky whiskers?) will still BOOM, no?

  9. why aren't you working? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    my batteries are on explosion alert shutdown? ok then

  10. Explosion resistant? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

    Every time I see something like "explosion proof" I think of how the Titanic was "unsinkable".

    It can be explosion resistant, but, really, a sufficiently determined person (or Seamus from Harry Potter) can always cause an explosion in the right situation.

    Uh, wha? Pedantry? Get off my lawn.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Explosion resistant? by sjames · · Score: 2

      Explosion resistant is a much better term for this. It addresses some but not all reasons a LiIon battery might "vent with flame".

  11. Coming to a hobby shop near you... by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    in about five years.

    1. Re:Coming to a hobby shop near you... by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Providing it doesn't increase the internal resistance of the battery.
      Some Li batteries for hobby use are rated to discharge up to 130x their capacity. That's a 5Ah cell discharging 650A.
      Adding 0.001 ohms to a battery discharging 100A creates an additional 10W of heat. The losses are exponential with current, 200A would result in 40W dissipation.

  12. Re:What about by vikingpower · · Score: 1

    You mean this scenario, don't you ?

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  13. Re:What about by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    If I learned anything from watching Star Trek, the secondary regulator should kick in when the primary regulator overheats.

  14. Recharging or on load? by LQ · · Score: 1

    I have a 14 Ah Li-on whose safety instructions say not to leave it unattended while recharging. That can take up to 16 hrs. What am I supposed to do? Sit in and watch it all day? So I bought an army surplus ammo box to charge it in which I hope would contain any chemical fire. Most of the safety instructions I found on line referred only to the fire risk while recharging, not overheating when on load.

    1. Re:Recharging or on load? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Fire proof bag. I've had 2 batteries catch fire on me. One in a Dell laptop, the other was an unprotected lithium cell hooked to an expensive charger and charging in a flame proof bag. Both were charging cases but the problem can occur during any high temperature scenario including a short circuit on an unprotected cell.

    2. Re:Recharging or on load? by ripvlan · · Score: 1

      well - both charging and dis-charging (using them) can trigger the same event. If you draw enough current the battery will get hot - normally the circuit breaker (if you have one) will pop/burn. I believe most Li-on fires are runaway due to impurities or defects in the battery itself. Once they get hot enough they can't stop - kind of a melt down.

      A friend of mine has model aircraft that run on batteries - he charges them in a giant tin-can outdoors. He once had one catch fire while charging (guess it got dented when his plane crashed but he charged it anyhow). It was a spectacular fire from such a small device - more like fireworks spraying up & out - made an impressive hole in the lawn.

      As for the ammo box - I don't know if it will contain the fire. It would seem it could but these things burn pretty darn hot and could melt a hole depending upon the size of the battery. I wouldn't charge them in the basement.

      I have a timer on my chargers - apparently some of these (cheap-o) chargers don't stop when the battery is full.

    3. Re:Recharging or on load? by fnj · · Score: 2

      A runaway LiIon is not just a "fire". There can be violent outgassing and blowtorching. If you try to hermetically close the ammo box while charging, it could easily be blown apart and imitate a grenade. If you DON'T seal it, the gas and flames could be voluminously emitted from the container.

      I would think a fireplace would be far safer. If you don't have one, mabe you could stack a labyrinth of firebricks on a big metal base. If the weather is nice and you have a sandy or gravelly or paved driveway with plenty of room, the center of that should be pretty safe. I use the inside of an oven which is otherwise unused, but most will not have the luxury of such a resource.

    4. Re:Recharging or on load? by aethelrick · · Score: 1

      The trouble is how to define "full" it's a moving target that changes with ambient temperature, battery age etc. You can count coulombs as you put them into the battery (which costs you some of them of course) and you can report on how many of them depart as you discharge, but no system is 100% efficient and the charge and discharge rates are also non-linear so you always "seems" to put in more than you get out and during continuous current draw by the system the output voltage of the battery fluctuates in response to use, temperature. You also have to calibrate these coulomb counting "fuel gauges" by fully discharging and recharging the battery from time to time.

      Not wanting to waste power where we can help it; The approach we take in our lithium-ion powered systems (that operate for many months at a time in the field in a wide range of harsh conditions -40C to +40C) is to measure output voltage from the battery and to stop charging when we hit a safe peak. We also use thermistors in charging to control the input voltage and we have a fail safe timer that gives up after a fixed period of charging irrespective of output voltage from the battery, we also slow charge batteries that are on very low output voltages or very high output voltages as this is when they are most likely to go bang (low output voltage has a risk of charging too quickly, high output voltage has a risk of overcharging, both of these make things get uncomfortably warm at worst and lower your battery life at best). We built all of this smart into our devices themselves so that you don't have to care about the charger being brainy, just that it's brawny enough to provide enough voltage at the current load you need.

      The cheap chargers I've had the misfortune to use ONLY use a timer at best as a fail-safe, this can cause a fire if you inadvertently over-charge a battery with it.

    5. Re:Recharging or on load? by ripvlan · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like plenty of failure mode analysis in your system.

      I should also point out that he was purchasing unprotected battery cells simply wrapped in a rubber like material - cheap on the internet shipped from an unknown location in China ;-) These batteries felt like a block of clay - and he was putting them in a model airplane with only the airframe & velcro protecting them from damage.

      Talk about risk taking. We'd all mock-hide when it became obvious he was about to "auger in."

  15. I wonder about dog's teeth. by SharpFang · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Recently mother, extremely unnerved, called me - claiming her dog brought a dud firework home and it exploded, nearly causing a fire.

    Later it was revealed it was not a firework. The dog stole a Li-Ion battery for my phone from my room. Biting into it shorted it, and the battery exploded hard, shooting ribbons of burning lithium all around like a true firework.

    So... would this new invention prevent it?

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:I wonder about dog's teeth. by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Nope. This is to prevent fires when the temperature rise is causes by over charging or over discharging by disconnecting the cell.

      Physical damage that shorts the battery internally, not so much.

    2. Re:I wonder about dog's teeth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tried puncturing a pretty old phone battery with thick metal case using a pitchfork, it was impossible.

      The solution is less cost-cutting and having slightly heavier/larger batteries.

  16. Trek by sjbe · · Score: 1

    If I learned anything from watching Star Trek, the secondary regulator should kick in when the primary regulator overheats.

    Nah, they just fix everything by realigning the dilithium crystal chamber. Unless the Particle Of The Week can be invoked and then they use that instead.

    1. Re:Trek by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      I prefer to reverse the polarity of the deflector dish.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  17. Re:What about by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

    No. He means for the scenario where someone makes a statement that is so blatantly wrong that there's no worth in attempting to correct the point of view and just click a couple buttons to mod the ignorance into oblivion.

    Of course, we all know that there is no way on this earth that such a mod would be abused in any way. /sarcasm

  18. Typo? by sjbe · · Score: 1

    Today Li-ion cells have got so many layers of belts and suspenders it's perfectly safe to be carrying a 3500 mAh battery in your pocket -- as I am dong right now.

    That typo could not possibly have been an accident...

  19. Production by Zane+C. · · Score: 1

    I wonder when these will go into mass production. Obviously, there are "hover" boards exploding to be concerned about, but there was a plane crash attributed to these, and that's always good to avoid.

  20. Re:What about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ACTUALLY, if you'd learned anything from watching Star Trek, it's that entire control stations explode when *anything* overheats *somewhere*

  21. Good news for electric cars by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

    "Sir, what caused the crash?"

    "I don't know. Before the driver died he mumbled something about the car just shutting down on him."

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  22. Re: What about by Coren22 · · Score: 0

    I see three comments above his, and none of them address how this technology works. Care to share which comments he should have read before they were posted?

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  23. Re:What about by aethelrick · · Score: 1

    I was thinking the same thing. A passive film won't do a damn thing to stop a short involving a "puncture wound". As pointed out by an earlier poster, most (if not all these days) lithium-ion packs come with one or more a built-in thermistors that inhibits current flow as the battery picks up heat during charging and discharge operations.

  24. Re:What about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This has always bothered me about Star Trek. Like, seriously, why in the hell would there be plasma conduits behind every control surface in every ship? I understand the reasoning, drama and effects, etc..., but I think there are better ways they could accomplish the same effect without blowing up the comms control panel and delivering plasma burns to its user's face every other episode.

  25. Re:What about by Zaowulf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Dammit Jim I'm a stage designer not an engineer!

  26. Or use LiFePo4 by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    LiFePo4 is inherently safe and will not catch fire or explode when overcharged, punctured, shot, dropped...etc.

    When talking about big ass batteries why risk it for sake of marginal increase in energy density?

    1. Re:Or use LiFePo4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LiFePo4 is inherently safe and will not catch fire or explode when overcharged, punctured, shot, dropped...etc.

      You are misinformed.

      video of LifePO4 battery exploding

    2. Re:Or use LiFePo4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #1 LiFePo4 cells will burn if set on fire. Duh. The electrolyte *is* flammable, with a ignition temperature north of 400C.
      #2 A cell bursting from internal overpressure after severe overcharge followed by being shorted for 15 minutes straight != explosion.
      Why don't you repeat the experiment in the video with nice "safe" lead-acid? I hear boiling sulfuric acid is great for your skin complexion.

    3. Re:Or use LiFePo4 by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      When LiFePos get as cheap as LiIons, then sure, we'll start using them everywhere. Until then, get used to LiIons, since LiPos have poor flammability resistance and LiFePos cost too much.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  27. Re:Batteries aren't dangerous. Dogs are. by vikingpower · · Score: 1

    You'd be a nice prey for my dog (cross-bred between German shepherd and Dachshund). He'd rip your calves off, even while being stomped to death.

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  28. That's nice by sunking2 · · Score: 1

    Except that the fires are often caused not be overheating caused by charging or load, but the heat produced from the arc created by the short.

  29. Re:Batteries aren't dangerous. Dogs are. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hah! I stomped on St Bernards, I stomped on Great Danes, I stomped on Rottweilers. You bring a dog along, I stomp on it. That's what I do: I stomp on dogs. All of them. Stomp stomp stomp.

  30. Re:What about by Khashishi · · Score: 1

    There needs to be a mod option "Wrong".

    You mean "Incorrect". You know moderations are only allowed to start with "in-"
    You know, to along with our other moderations inconsequential, inflammatory, incongruous, incessant, insightful, interesting, informative, inane, insipid.

  31. batteries talking back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now I'm waiting to hear the story of Goldilocks and the 3 diodes.

  32. Re:What about by aXis100 · · Score: 1

    You should RTFA.

    This passive film is inside the cell and acts quickly. They specifically mention that the external thermisters / PTC polyfuses act much slower and are not always fast enough to prevent problems.

  33. Re:What about by aethelrick · · Score: 1

    You only get rapid heat build up in Li-ion cells if they are gaining or losing charge RAPIDLY. The current safety systems work quite well except where they are not fitted by the battery manufacturer (as is often the case for fast discharge protection) or where the battery is physically damaged (causing a massive short and a circumvention of the safety systems). It is arguably reasonable for a battery manufacturer to leave limiting the discharge rate to the hardware developer because they can't be expected to know in advance what the discharge requirements in the final application will be and it's in the hardware developers interest to limit the current draw with adequate resistance in order to prolong battery life between recharges.

    In the 40000 real world missions our battery powered devices have undertaken in conditions ranging from Arctic to tropical, we haven't had a single incidence of Li-ion battery fire even when our devices have been battered by idiots with sledge hammers, over charged, under charged, badly charged etc

    Thermistors for the win!

    That said though, if these thing come to market and they're cheaper with equivalent or better performance then of course I'm interested :) until then however I'm a bit meh...