Scientists may have cracked the safety issues around thermal runaway in lithium-ion cells by placing temperature sensors inside the battery.
Researchers at Penn State’s Battery and Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Centre in the US have devised an ‘internal reaction temperature sensing’ (RTS) technology which provides early warnings of any problems.
The device involves placing sensors inside cells to monitor temperature rises as chemical reactions take place.
If the sensor detects an unusual spike in temperature, the current flow in the battery will be cut off.
The development is another step along the research centre’s path to creating smart batteries, which would have numerous built-in sensors and actuators that would enhance a battery’s performance, life and safety.
The goal is to make it possible for battery operators to alter the temperature inside a battery to enable it to perform just as well in colder temperatures.
Penn State is not the first research centre to work on safety measures for lithium-ion batteries.
In January BEST reported Stanford University scientists, who claimed to have developed a battery that automatically shuts down before it is too hot to catch fire and then conducts again when the temperature cools down.
