A device to detect safety-compromised lithium-ion batteries

Principal investigator: Damoon Soudbakhsh

University: Temple University

Industry partner: Inovele, LLC

A battery energy storage system (BESS), such as a lithium-ion battery, is the preferred power source storage for many applications, including cell phones, electric vehicles (EVs), and grid storage. A BESS can pose severe hazards, such as under abuse conditions, where it may release an uncontrollable amount of energy. In more demanding applications, its risk becomes higher as inevitable accidental abuse and damage lead to thermal runaways. This project is motivated by the many unexpected fires and explosions ranging from Boeing 787 Dreamliners, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, EV trucks and buses, and electrical scooters. We plan to develop a device based on our experiments to diagnose instances of a compromised BESS. The tasks include design and fabrication of a device to accurately measure electrochemical response of batteries and accompanying software to analyze the response and quantify battery safety. Potential applications include EV battery management systems, second-life applications, or as a stand-alone device to quantify battery safety post-crashes.