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Investigation of the thermal performance in lithium-ion cells during polyformaldehyde nail penetration

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Abstract

The nail penetration test on lithium-ion cells with a tungsten steel nail can cause significant heat sinking to the nail. In this work, a polyformaldehyde nail with both low thermal conductivity and low electrical conductivity is proposed to conduct the nail penetration test to study the thermal response. Meanwhile, a 3D electrochemical–thermal model is developed to predict the thermal behavior of lithium-ion cells during nail penetration tests. Two typical modes (recovery mode and non-recovery mode) of voltage response are observed and illustrated in polyformaldehyde nail penetration tests. The present results demonstrate that Al–Cu short dominants the four internal short-circuit modes in polyformaldehyde nail penetration tests. It can be concluded that net heat absorbed by the cell in polyformaldehyde nail penetration modeling is more than that in tungsten steel nail penetration modeling, causing the higher temperature rise of lithium-ion cell in nail penetration tests with the tungsten steel nail than that of polyformaldehyde nail. The present study provides an ideal alternative to solve the heat sinking to the nail in the nail penetration tests effectively.

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Abbreviations

c :

Volume-averaged lithium concentration in a phase (mol m−3)

\(C_{\text{p}}\) :

Specific heat capacity (J kg−1 K−1)

D s :

Li diffusion coefficient in a solid (m2 s−1)

d nail :

Nail diameter (m)

\(E_{\text{act}}\) :

Activation energy (J mol−1)

j :

Volumetric reaction current (A m−3)

\(L_{\text{nail}}\) :

Length of penetrated nail (m)

\(q_{\text{rev}}\) :

Reversible entropic heat generation rate (W m−3)

\(q_{\text{ohm}}\) :

Ohmic heat generation rate (W m−3)

\(q_{\text{act}}\) :

Activation heat generation rate (W m−3)

\(R_{\text{st}}\) :

Shorting resistance (\({{\Omega }}\))

\(r_{\text{s}}\) :

Radius of solid active material particles (m)

T :

Absolute temperature (°C)

t :

Time (s)

\(U\) :

Open-circuit voltage (V)

\(\alpha_{\text{a}}\) :

Anodic transfer coefficient

\(\alpha_{\text{c}}\) :

Cathodic transfer coefficient

\(\varepsilon\) :

Surface emissivity

\(\varepsilon_{\text{e}}\) :

Volume fraction of a phase

\(\kappa\) :

Ionic conductivity of electrolyte (S m−1)

\(\kappa_{\text{D}}\) :

Diffusional conductivity of a species (A m−1)

ρ :

Density (kg m−3)

σ :

Electronic conductivity (S m−1)

\(\phi\) :

Electrical potential in a phase (V)

\(\varPhi\) :

Generic physiochemical property

0:

Initial value

e:

Electrolyte phase

max:

Maximum value

ref:

With respect to a reference state

s:

Solid phase

eff:

Effective

Li:

Lithium species

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFB0100306), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51674228 & 51976209), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. WK2320000044). Dr. Q.S. Wang is supported by Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (No. Y201768).

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Author notes

  1. Jionggeng Wang, Wenxin Mei and Zhixian Cui have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Wenxin Mei, Zhixian Cui, Haodong Chen, Qiangling Duan, Qingsong Wang & **hua Sun

  2. Zhejiang Huayun Technology Information Co., Ltd, Hangzhou, 310000, People’s Republic of China

    Jionggeng Wang, Dong Dong, Weixiong Shen & Jie Hong

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  1. Jionggeng Wang
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Correspondence to Haodong Chen or Qiangling Duan.

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Wang, J., Mei, W., Cui, Z. et al. Investigation of the thermal performance in lithium-ion cells during polyformaldehyde nail penetration. J Therm Anal Calorim 145, 3255–3268 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-020-09853-y

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