NASA NTRS2019
Metallized plastic current collectors are an innovation patented by the Soteria Battery Innovation Group with the promise of isolating active material involved in an internal short by vaporizing and isolating the short from the rest of the cell electrode jellyroll or stack. Partnering with NREL, UCL, Coulometrics, and Soteria, NASA is leading a research effort into demonstrating the merits and understanding the phenomena of this safety innovation using prototype 18650 cylindrical cells vs control cells with standard metal foil current collectors. Cells with and without the plastic collector, with and without the on-demand internal short circuit device, and with polymer or cellulose separators were made. Safety evaluations were done with driving cells into thermal runaway (TR) with thermal and nail penetration triggers while inside our TR calorimeter and with ultra high speed X-ray videography provided at Synchrotrons. Preliminary results suggests that the thermally unstable plastic current collector innovation has great promise for preventing TR or reducing the severity of the TR output.