Active Termination of Lithium-Ion Battery Fires and Thermal Runaway

"Li-ion batteries have a major downside which is their potential to initiate fires, escalate to thermal runaway increasing the violence, and to possibly explode.Traditional fire extinguishing agents either perform poorly or are impractical on these high-energy fires.Two innovations, in combination, are proposed for research and development.Pyrotechnic aerosol extinguishing agents will be proven highly efficient in interrupting the chain reaction of these fires.Further, instead of having expensive canisters hold the aerosol agent, robust solid thin panels or coatings of only the aerosol agent, will be developed for shipping boxes or other enclosures.The objective of the project will be to develop the new formulation and produce solid aerosol agent panels which will be tested against challenging battery fires.These tests will also prove that the solid extinguishing agent panels or coatings near the batteries will be released quickly and automatically when the flame or heat from the battery fire reaches them.These panels will occupy very little space, have exceptionally low weight, low costs, and no maintenance.They can be adopted for a variety of enclosures, such as shipping boxes, containers, electric vehicles, and, in future, direct application to battery cells and modules."