2025 Theses Doctoral

Probing Alkali-ion Battery Safety Hazards Using Calorimetric Techniques

Schumacher, Bret

Since their invention in the 1980s, alkali-ion batteries, especially the lithium-ion battery, have become the dominant choice in electrified technologies ranging from small portable electronics to e-mobility devices to large stationary storage systems. As performance has been optimized and prices have decreased, the demand for these devices has skyrocketed, especially in dense urban areas where personal e-mobility devices have become an efficient mode of travel.

An unfortunate consequence of the adoption of these devices is the increasing amount of reported failure events resulting in fires and explosions, affecting lives and damaging property. Understanding the underlying mechanism of battery failure is critical to future design and use of these systems.

In this dissertation, calorimetry and lab-scale cost aware experimental design were used to test different abuse scenarios to provide a better framework to determine critical safety parameters. These methods were conducted on high and low energy dense lithium systems and beyond-lithium systems. Future experiments for these experimental methods and the outlook of holistic battery safety is discussed.