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Experimental investigation and visualization on thermal runaway of hard prismatic lithium-ion batteries used in smart phones

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Abstract

In this study, we demonstrate first time the application of confinement tests under excessive heating to track the thermal responses during the thermal runaway in hard prismatic lithium-ion batteries used in smart phones. Seven hard prismatic lithium-ion batteries used in smart phones of iPhone 5, iPhone 6, Redmi 2, SAMSUNG Note 3, SAMSUNG S5, SONY C3 and SONY Z3 at full-charged state have been studied. Characteristics in relation to thermodynamics such as onset temperature, crucial temperature, maximum self-heat rate and maximum temperature are measured and assessed. SAMSUNG S5 shall carry the most unstable feature with an exothermic onset temperature as low as 117 °C. SAMSUNG Note 3 displays the worst-case scenario by possessing the maximum temperature and maximum self-heat rate reaching the extremity of 675.6 °C and 11,860.0 °C min−1.

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Abbreviations

C p :

Specific heat capacity (J kg−1 K−1)

E a :

Activation energy ( kJ mol−1)

\(\dot{Q}\) :

Heat rate (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{abuse}}\) :

Heat rate of abusive conditions in lithium-ion battery (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{accu}}\) :

Heat rate accumulated in lithium-ion battery (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{comb}}\) :

Heat generation rate from combustion reaction of electrolyte (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{dissipated}}\) :

Heat dissipation rate from combustion reaction of electrolyte (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{{{\text{ele}} - {\text{chem}}}}\) :

Heat generation rate from electrical–chemical reaction conversion (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{generated}}\) :

Heat generation rate from combustion reaction of electrolyte (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{ne}}\) :

Heat generation rate from reaction of lithiated anode material with electrolyte (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{pe}}\) :

Heat generation rate from reaction of delithiated cathode material with electrolyte (W m−3)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{sei}}\) :

Heat generation rate from SEI decomposition (W m−3)

R :

Universal gas constant (8.314 J mol−1 K−1)

T A :

Corrected temperature of HPLIB under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T A0 :

Corrected onset temperature of HPLIB under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T amb :

Ambient temperature (°C or K)

T ave :

Averaged temperature of the lithium-ion battery (°C or K)

T cr :

Crucial temperature of hard prismatic lithium-ion battery under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T M :

Measured temperature of HPLIB under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T M0 :

Measured onset temperature of HPLIB under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T max :

Maximum temperature of hard prismatic lithium-ion battery under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T max-rate :

Temperature with the maximum self-heat rate (°C or K)

T onset :

Exothermic onset temperature of hard prismatic lithium-ion battery under thermal runaway (°C or K)

T runaway :

Runaway temperature of the lithium-ion battery (°C or K)

(dT/dt):

Self-heat rate (°C min−1)

(dT/dt)max :

Maximum self-heat rate (°C min−1)

Ε :

Emissivity of the battery surface (dimensionless)

k :

Conductivity of the domain (W m−1 K−1)

▽:

Gradient operator (dimensionless)

λ :

Thermal conductivity (W m−1 K−1)

ρ :

Density (kg m−3)

ψ :

Thermal inertia (dimensionless)

σ :

Electrical conductivity of lithium ion in the electrode (S m−1)

ad:

Adiabatic

cr:

Crucial

max:

Maximum

max-rate:

Maximum rate

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank National Science Council, R.O.C., for financial support of this study under contract No. MOST 104-2221-E-239-002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Occupational Safety and Health, Jen-Teh Junior College of Medicine, Nursing and Management, Miaoli, Taiwan, ROC

    Yih-Shing Duh

  2. Department of Safety, Health and Environmental Engineering, National United University, Miaoli, Taiwan, ROC

    Yih-Shing Duh, Kai Hsuan Lin & Chen-Shan Kao

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Correspondence to Chen-Shan Kao.

Appendix

Appendix

Calculation of specific heat capacity and thermal inertia of commercial prismatic lithium-ion batteries.

1 Specific heat capacity and thermal inertia of a 25,000-mAh prismatic battery manufactured by the AE Energy Co. Ltd.

The specific heat capacity and thermal inertia are calculated from the data in Fig. 2 from the literature of Feng et al. [14]. The reference has been cited in the manuscript. The mass and heat capacity of individual constituent of a lithium-ion battery are rearranged in Table 3. In addition to the specific heat capacity, the thermal inertia can be calculated by respective mass and heat capacity of the components in the prismatic battery.

Table 3 Mass and specific heat capacity of the components in a 25,000-mAh prismatic battery [14]
Full size table

From the data of Table 3, the corresponding specific heat capacity of a 25,000-mAh prismatic battery is calculated by the following. Cp = ΣM i Cp i /ΣM i  = (14 × 1.184 + 25 × 1.134 + 15 × 2.092 + 2 × 2.066 + 33 × 0.900 + 8 × 0.385 + 3 × 0.903)/100 = 1.16 J g−1 K−1. This is in good agreement with the experimental data reported in the literature [15, 44,45,46].

Thermal inertia can be defined as ΣMiCpi/ΣMriCpri; in addition, both the anode and cathode took part in the reaction. The mass of the reaction system can be assumed to be the summation of anode material, cathode material and electrolyte. Thus, for reaction system, ΣMriCpri = 14 × 1.184 (graphite) + 25 × 1.134 (cathode material) + 15 × 2.092 (electrolyte) = 76.306. Therefore, the thermal inertia of this prismatic battery is calculated to be about 1.52 (= ΣMiCpi/ΣMriCpri = 116/76.306).

2 Specific heat capacity and thermal inertia of the commercial 18650 lithium-ion batteries have reported to be about 0.87 J g−1 K−1 and 1.71 [15, 44]

Content of this section can be found in [15] which is our previous JTAC publication.

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Duh, YS., Lin, K.H. & Kao, CS. Experimental investigation and visualization on thermal runaway of hard prismatic lithium-ion batteries used in smart phones. J Therm Anal Calorim 132, 1677–1692 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-018-7077-2

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