Impact of Lithium Salts on the Combustion Characteristics of Electrolyte under Diverse Pressures

Changcheng Liu, Que Huang, Kaihui Zheng, Jiawen Qin, Dechuang Zhou and Jian Wang
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Changcheng Liu: School of Environment and Safety Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan 030051, China
Que Huang: School of Environment and Safety Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan 030051, China
Kaihui Zheng: School of Environment and Safety Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan 030051, China
Jiawen Qin: School of Environment and Safety Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan 030051, China
Dechuang Zhou: State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Jian Wang: State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-15

Abstract: The electrolyte is one of the components that releases the most heat during the thermal runaway (TR) and combustion process of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Therefore, the thermal hazard of the electrolyte has a significant impact on the safety of LIBs. In this paper, the combustion characteristics of the electrolyte such as parameters of heat release rate (HRR), mass loss rate (MLR) and total heat release (THR) have been investigated and analyzed. In order to meet the current demand of plateau sections with low-pressure and low-oxygen areas on LIBs, an electrolyte with the most commonly used lithium salts, LiPF 6 , was chosen as the experimental sample. Due to the superior low-temperature performance, an electrolyte containing LiBF4 was also selected to be compared with the LiPF 6 sample. Combustion experiments were conducted for electrolyte pool fire under various altitudes. According to the experimental results, both the average and peak values of MLR in the stable combustion stage of the electrolyte pool fire had positive exponential relations with the atmospheric pressure. At the relatively higher altitude, there was less THR, and the average and peak values of HRR decreased significantly, while the combustion duration increased remarkably when compared with that at the lower altitude. The average HRR of the electrolyte with LiBF 4 was obviously lower than that of solution containing LiPF 6 under low atmospheric pressure, which was slightly higher for LiBF 4 electrolyte at standard atmospheric pressure. Because of the low molecular weight (MW) of LiBF 4 , the THR of the corresponding electrolyte was larger, so the addition of LiBF 4 could not effectively improve the safety of the electrolyte. Moreover, the decrease of pressure tended to increase the production of harmful hydrogen fluoride (HF) gas.

Keywords: Lithium-ion battery; electrolyte; combustion characteristic; cone calorimeter; low pressure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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