Experimental research on flammability characteristics and ignition conditions of hybrid mixture emissions venting from a large format thermal failure lithium-ion battery

When the concentration of gas is below its lower flammable limit and the content of the particles is below its minimum explosible concentration, it can be explosible. Thermal abuse tests for 50 Ah lithium-ion batteries were conducted under an inert atmosphere. The battery failure venting emissions were collected and their composition was identified previously. It still needs further research for the flammability characteristics and ignition conditions for hybrid mixture emissions venting from a large format lithium-ion battery thermal failure. In this study, the likelihood, severity, and kinetics of the batteries' hybrid mixture emissions flammability have been researched. To analyze battery emission flammability characteristics, five indexes have been investigated; they are ignition temperature (Tig), ignition time (τig), maximum explosion pressure (Pmax), pressure rise maximum rate ((dP/dτ)max), and size-normalized maximum rate pressure rise (KSt). Based on quantitative analysis for the hybrid mixture flammability characteristics, it indicates that particle size and gas content can impact hybrid mixture emission flammability characteristics. As for the mixture with finer particles, the optimum combustion condition of the particle and gas concentration pairs were 0.3 and 0.7. The ignition temperature for the optimum combustion conditions was 495 °C. The pressure rising velocity was 23 Mpa/s during ignition. High solvent content and low particle concentration are the conditions for optimum combustion. This indicates that the gas admixture solvent plays a major role in the combustion kinetics of the mixture emission. This research offers a fundamental perspective and provides preventive and protective thermal safety designs that are more suitable for large format commercial battery thermal systems.