Safety and abuse testing
A series of abuse tests on large lithium thionyl chloride cells was initiated. Performance data obtained in testing rectangular 2,000 and 10,000 ampere-hour cells are discussed and graphically presented.
Younger, G.↗
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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Safety and Abuse Testing of Energizer LiFeS2 AA Cells
The LiFeS2 test program was part of the study on state-of-the-art batteries/cells available in the commercial market. It was carried out in an effort to replace alkaline AA cells for Shuttle and Station applications. A large number of alkaline cells are used for numerous Shuttle and Station applications as loose cells. Other government agencies reported good performance and abuse tolerance of the AA LiFeS2 cells. In this study, only abuse testing was performed on the cells to determine their tolerance. The tests carried out were over-discharge, external short circuit, heat-to-vent, vibration and drop.
Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
Impact of Testing Method on Safety Assessment of Aged Li-Ion Cells: Part II – Aged Cells Without Li Plating
Understanding the safety profile of aged Li-ion batteries is essential for developing effective battery management and hazard mitigation strategies. However, most safety assessments have focused on fresh batteries, with just a few calorimetry studies on aged batteries with metal oxide positive electrodes. This study provides a broad assessment of commercial 18650-type Li-ion batteries with NCA, NMC, and LFP positive electrodes, both uncycled and aged under conditions that promoted solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) growth as the dominant degradation mechanism. The cells underwent mechanical (nail penetration, crush), electrical (overcharge, overdischarge), and thermal (accelerating rate calorimetry) abuse tests. Safety was rated on general characteristics such as mass loss, maximum temperature, and EUCAR (European Council for Automotive R&D) hazard level, as well as characteristics specific to individual abuse tests. Generally, aged cells with SEI growth exhibited similar or improved safety compared to uncycled cells, contrasting with our previous findings on NCA cells with Li plating as the dominant aging mechanism (Part I of this series). Yet, some tests and characteristics indicated reduced aged cell safety, such as earlier triggering of mechanical failure. These results emphasize the need to examine aged battery safety across diverse empirical techniques, degradation modes, and chemistries.
Lithium-ion cells↗
Reserve Li/SOC12 Battery Safety Testing
A reserve Lithium/Thionyl Chloride Battery concept is developed and undergoing feasibility testing in terms of performance, safety and abusive conditions. The feasibility of employing a battery of this type to replace thermal batteries in certain applications is demonstrated. Excellent performance of a Li/SOCl2 reserve battery is obtained across the temperature range from 0 C to +44 C. Performance improvement over the thermal battery usage is greater by a factor of 3 when discharge time and energy density are compared. Performance over an expanded temperature range is also possible. Safety and abusive testing is accomplished successfully on a series of five units. Further performance improvements can be achieved with regard to battery weight and volume reductions.
Dils, C. T.↗
The USAF Phillips Laboratory sodium-sulfur battery technology program: Results and status
Tests performed on NaS batteries are reported. The results of safety and abuse testing, shock and vibration tests, cell failure on warm-up, freeze thaw, overtemperature conditions, electrolyte fracture, overdischarge, and short circuit tests are presented along with GEO and LEO cycle tests and the status of the NaS cell flight tests.
Rainbow, Marc E.↗
Characterizing Hazardous Gases from NMC811 Materials and Coin Cells with TGA and Tube-Furnace FTIR-MS Evolved-Gas-Analysis
Abuse testing is useful for informing the risks of different battery chemistries but has been limited to larger formats. This paper conducted thermal abuse tests at the smaller coin cell level to determine its relevance in specifying vent gas flammability and toxicity. A nitrogen purge carried the evolved gases into a parallel Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) and a mass spectrometer (MS) downstream of the tube furnace. The experimental system was validated by comparing evolved gas data for single components between the tube furnace system and a thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) instrument. Multiple samples were tested during validation, including CaCO3, electrolyte, delithiated NMC 811 cathode, and lithiated graphite anode. Temperature-resolved gas evolution of HF, CO2, CO, H2, and hydrocarbons from isolated components helped to characterize the emission sources. A previously unreported H2 generation mechanism was found. It was shown that the reduced NMC cathode acts as a catalyst to crack polypropylene-decomposed hydrocarbons into H2 at around 450 degrees C. It was also shown, while studying LiPF6 thermal decomposition, that using the tube furnace with a coin cell casing as the sample holder has some advantages for evolved-gas analysis of environmentally sensitive samples relative to testing in TGA instruments. After validation with single components, a fully charged NMC 811 coin cell was failed in the tube furnace. The measured evolved gases were found to be a combination of the species measured from the single component tests. H2 formation related to the reduced cathode was found to have greater abundance than H2 formed from the anode. Hydrogen fluoride emission factors and diethyl carbonate conversion emission factors assist in understanding the gaseous hazards for larger format cells.
25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
A Novel Lithium-ion Laminated Pouch Cell Tested For Performance And Safety
A new Li-ion 4.0 Ah pouch cell from GS Yuasa has been tested to determine its performance and safety. The cell is of a laminate pouch design with liquid electrolyte. The rate, thermal and vacuum performance capabilities have been tested to determine the optimum parameters. Under vacuum conditions, the cells were cycled under restrained and unrestrained configurations. The burst pressure of the laminate pouch was also determined. The overcharge, overdischarge into reversal and external short circuit safety tests were also performed to determine the cell s tolerance to abuse. Key Words: Li-ion, safety, vacuum test, abuse, COTS batteries, rate capability
Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
A Comparison of Two Panasonic Lithium-Ion Batteries and Cells for the IBM Thinkpad
The IBM Thinkpad 760XD has been used in the Orbiter and International Space Station since 2000. The Thinkpad is powered by a Panasonic Li-ion battery that has a voltage of 10.8 V and 3.0 Ah capacity. This Thinkpad is now being replaced by the IBM Thinkpad A31P which has a Panasonic Li-ion battery that has a voltage of 10.8 V and 4.0 Ah capacity. Both batteries have protective circuit boards. The Panasonic battery for the Thinkpad 760XD had 12 Panasonic 17500 cells of 0.75 Ah capacity in a 4P3S cOnfiguration. The new Panasonic battery has 6 Panasonic 18650 cells of 2.0 Ah capacity in a 2P3S configuration. The batteries and cells for both models have been evaluated for performance and safety. A comparison of the cells under similar test conditions will be presented. The performance of the cells has been evaluated under different rates of charge and discharge and different temperatures. The cells have been tested under abuse conditions and the safety features in the cells evaluated. The protective circuit board in the battery was also tested under conditions of overcharge, overdischarge, short circuit and unbalanced cell configurations. The results of the studies will be presented in this paper.
Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
Performance and Safety Tests on Samsung 18650 Li-ion Cells: Two Cell Designs
In order to meet the applications for space shuttle in future, two types of Samsung cells, with capacity 1800 mAh and 2000 mAh, have been investigated. The studies focused on: (1) Performance tests: completed 250 cycles at various combinations of charge/discharge C rates and discharge capacity measurements at various temperatures; and (2) Safety tests: overcharge and overdischarge, heat abuse, short circuit, internal and external short, and vibration, vacuum, and drop tests
Deng, Yi↗
Safety Evaluation of Two Commercial Lithium-ion Batteries for Space Applications
Lithium-ion batteries have been used for applications on the Shuttle and Station for the past six years. A majority of the li-ion batteries flown are Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) varieties. The COTS batteries and cells were tested under nominal and abusive conditions for performance and safety characterization. Within the past six months two batteries have been certified for flight and use on the Space Station. The first one is a Hand Spring PDA battery that had a single prismatic li-ion cell and the second is an Iridium satellite phone that had a two-cell pack with prismatic li-ion cells.
Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
Test results of JPL LiSOCl sub 2 cells
In the development of high rate Li-SO-Cl2 cells for various applications, the goal is to achieve 300 watt-hours per kilogram at the C/2 (5 amp) rate in a D cell configuration. The JPL role is to develop the understanding of the performance, life, and safety limiting characteristics in the cell and to transfer the technology to a manufacturer to produce a safe, high quality product in a reproducible manner. The approach taken to achieve the goals is divided into four subject areas: cathode processes and characteristics; chemical reactions and safety; cell design and assembly; and performance and abuse testing. The progress made in each of these areas is discussed.
Halpert, G.↗
Performance and Safety Testing of Cylindrical Moli Lithium-Ion Cells
The Moli lithium-ion cells were tested under normal and abuse conditions. The cells exhibit only 50% of their original capacity at about -10 C. The optimum charge/discharge rate with the least percentage loss in capacity is C/2 charge and C/4 discharge. The cells did not explode or go into a thermal runaway during venting at very high temperatures. They exhibited good tolerance under the vibration conditions tested and could potentially be used in the build up of large batteries that have high current pulse (up to 3C) applications.
Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
Evaluation of advanced high rate Li-SOCl2 cells
Under NASA sponsorship, JPL is developing advanced, high rate Li-SOCl2 cells for future space missions. As part of this effort, Li-SOCl2 cells of various designs were examined for performance and safety. The cells differed from one another in several aspects, such as: nature of carbon cathode, catalysts, cell configuration, case polarity, and safety devices. Performance evaluation included constant-current discharge over a range of currents and temperatures. Abuse-testing consisted of shortcircuiting, charging, and over-discharge. Energy densities greater than 300 Wh/Kg at the C/2 rate were found for some designs. A cell design featuring a high-surface-area carbon cathode was found to deliver nearly 500 Wh/Kg at moderate discharge rates. Temperature influenced the performance significantly.
Deligiannis, F.↗
Tritium Containment Vessel Response to Thermal and Mechanical Abuse Environments for Fire Safety Assessments
This report evaluates leakage behavior from tritium containment vessels under thermal abuse and combined thermal-mechanical abuse conditions to better understand safety implications for releases occurring in a fire scenario. Surrogate gases were used for all tests in this report. Leakage through the valves from thermal pressurization was observed when heating rates >0.8°C/s were sustained to >300°C. Gas plumes were visualized from vessels that were heated above 260°C and then dropped.
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
Use of COTS Batteries on ISS and Shuttle
This presentation focuses on COTS Battery testing for energy content, toxicity, hazards, failures modes and controls for different battery chemistries. It also discusses the current program requirements, challenges with COTS Batteries in manned vehicle COTS methodology, JSC test details, and gives a list of incidents from consumer protection safety commissions. The Battery test process involved testing new batteries for engineering certification, qualification of batteries, flight acceptance, cell and battery, environment, performance and abuse. Their conclusions and recommendations were that: high risk is undertaken with the use of COTS batteries, hazard control verification is required to allow the use of these batteries on manned space flights, failures during use cannot be understood if different scenarios of failure are not tested on the ground, and that testing is performed on small sample numbers due to restrictions on cost and time. They recommend testing of large sample size to gain more confidence in the operation of the hazard controls.
Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
Advanced Lithium-ion Batteries with High Specific Energy and Improved Safety for Nasa's Missions
High Energy Materials ( Cathodes, anodes and high voltage and safe electrolyte are required to meet the needs of the future space missions. A. Cathodes: The layered layered composites of of Li2MnO3 and LiMO2 are promising Power capability of the materials, however requires further improvement. Suitable morphology is critical for good performance and high tap (packing) density. Surface coatings help in the interfacial kinetics and stability. B. Electrolytes: Small additions of Flame Retardant Additives improves flammability without affecting performance (Rate and cycle life). 1.0 M in EC+EMC+TPP was shown to have good performance against the high voltage cathode; Performance demonstrated in large capacity prototype MCMB- LiNiCoO2 Cells. Formulations with higher proportions are looking promising. Still requires further validation through abuse tests (e.g., on 18650 cells).
NASA Missions↗
Addressing the Safety of Next-Generation Batteries
Owing to increasing demand for low-cost energy storage with secure material supply chains, the battery community is approaching a pivotal shift beyond conventional lithium-ion (Li-ion) towards next-generation cells. Technologies that include alkali-metal anodes, solid electrolytes and earth-abundant materials such as sodium (Na) and sulfur (S) are reaching commercialization in cells. The abuse tolerance and thermal runaway hazards of such technologies diverge from conventional Li-ion cells. Consequently, designing safe batteries with next-generation materials requires a holistic approach to characterize cells and to understand their responses to abuse conditions from the beginning to the end of life. Here we provide a Perspective on how the safety and abuse tolerance of cells are likely to change for up-and-coming technologies; challenges and opportunities for reimagining safe cell and battery designs; gaps in our knowledge; capabilities for understanding the hazards of thermal runaway and how to address them; how standard abuse tests may need to adapt to new challenges; and how research needs to support affected professionals, from pack designers to first responders, to manage hazards and ensure safe roll-out of next-generation cells into applications like electric vehicles (EVs). Finally, given the large number of next-generation technologies being explored, we encourage giving priority to safety-focused research in proportion to the rate of manufacturing scale-up of each specific technology.
25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
Improvements in safety testing of lithium cells
A systematic approach was developed for evaluating the basic safety parameters of high power lithium soluble cathode cells. This approach consists of performing a series of tests on each cell model during the design, prototype and production phases. Abusive testing is performed in a facility where maximum protection is given to test personnel.
Stinebring, R. C.↗