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Understand and Prevent Battery Fires and Explosions – and Avoid Costly Failures Like the Samsung Note 7
Modern batteries (eg Li-Ion) contain hazardous chemicals & they heat up during use: this combination always has the potential to cause fires & explosions. This presentation will focus on improving the understanding of how these incidents occur, what can be done to avoid them & how the risk can be minimized during early stage design.
The Samsung Note 7 phone & Boeing Dreamliner airplane fires are very costly examples of how even large corporations fail to understand the potential fire risk of batteries.
The solution lies in knowledge of heat generation rate during normal use & information about safe boundaries such as temperature, discharge rate & overcharge, in realistic situations that represent actual use conditions. Data from commercial batteries of different types will be used to illustrate these points.
A relatively new technique will also be discussed with data, which allows total heat output during discharge to be measured on-line and this can be used both for design and battery modelling. Examples of the data will be provided.
This webinar will focus on the following key topics:
• Why battery fires & explosions occur
• How to design safer batteries though understanding of heat generation
• Video evidence of batteries under explosive conditions
• How better thermal management systems can be designed – based on heat measurement from isothermal calorimetry
• Laboratory instruments suitable for testing and data generation
Presenter
Dr. Jasbir Singh – Managing Director at Hazard Evaluation Laboratory
Jasbir is a chemical engineer specializing in thermal hazards and calorimetry, traditionally for the chemical industry but now increasingly involved in battery safety, especially Li-ion EV and related types.
A graduate of Imperial College (London), where he undertook PhD into combustion and explosions, his experience includes many years in process design for the chemical and petrochemical industries. He is currently developing test methods and instruments for use in design of battery thermal management systems.
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Solid Electrolytes and Bulk Scale Solid-State Batteries
Recently, the push to move beyond Li – ion battery technology has grown. Several advanced battery technologies & chemistries have been identified as promising candidates including i) solid-state batteries with Li metal anode, ii) Li – S chemistries, iii) Li – air(oxygen), and iv) flow batteries. Although an engineered solution using liquids may be possible for some of these options, a solid electrolyte is an enabling technology for each of these beyond Li – ion alternatives. This webinar will introduce the operating principles of each of these cell technologies and solid electrolytes will be discussed in this context. The requirements of a solid electrolyte will be outlined & several state of the art solid electrolytes will be compared. Recent technical progress towards the fabrication of solid-state batteries will be reviewed. Finally, an overview of market applications for solid-state will be presented.
This webinar will focus on the following key topics:
• Overview of beyond Li – ion battery technologies enabled by solid electrolytes
• Comparison of state of the art solid electrolytes
• Recent technical progress towards solid-state batteries
• Review of market applications for solid-state batteries
Presenter
Travis Thompson – Post Doctorate Research Fellow at University of Michigan
Travis received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2010 from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and his PhD in Materials Science at Michigan State University in 2014. His graduate work has focused on synthesis & processing of materials for direct thermal-to-electric energy conversion & storage. This includes ambient drying of silica aerogels, processing of oxide based thermoelectric materials, & electrochemical characterization of ceramic solid electrolytes for advanced batteries. He is now a Research Fellow at The University of Michigan and is exploring commercialization of Solid-State Batteries from his graduate work.
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Preventing Thermal Runaway in Energy Storage Systems (ESS)
From air transportation to electric vehicles and most recently “Hover Boards”, our industry is painfully aware of the over-discharge malfunctions associated with high-energy lithium-ion batteries, yet according to recent studies, nearly 70% of all Energy Storage Systems currently deployed are lithium-ion. Avoiding the pitfalls of utilizing greater energy density in larger installations is what will be discussed. Michelle will walk through the recent innovations from materials and process tracking in battery manufacturing to comprehensive control of cells in a fully deployed system. Incorporating lessons learned from recent failure investigations by the NTSB and FAA as well as new DoE mandates, Michelle will discuss how to achieve and in some areas surpass the new emerging safety certifications for a multi-megawatt energy storage system.
This webinar will focus on the following key topics:
• Making batteries safe or making safe batteries? (control & mitigation)
• Cell manufacture tracking, certification and response
– NTSB & DoE analysis and current situation
• Incorporating advanced battery management systems (BMS)
– Active cell dynamic balancing
– Cell replacement (hot-swapping)
– System reconfiguration
– Energy density scalability
Presenter
Michelle Klassen – VP of Business Development at Pathion, Inc.
Michelle Klassen is VP of Business Development for PATHION Inc. which manufactures high-performance, safe, and reliable Energy Storage Systems (ESS) for commercial markets ranging from 86 kilowatt-hours in stand-alone systems to over 1 megawatt-hour in containerized units. Prior to PATHION, as Vice President at ZeroBase Energy, she led the design and implementation of power systems and micro-grids for customers, including the US Department of Defense, Kenya Ministry of Energy and the L.A. Department of Water and Power.
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Beyond Electrochemical Analysis – 2D to 4D Correlation of Microstructure and Chemistry in Li-ion Batteries
Single imaging instruments as well as correlative microscopy workflows have demonstrated some unique abilities to support LIB research beyond electrochemical analysis methods. Light microscopy delivers insights about ablation effects & phase orientations in the active material, while scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals information about aging effects, nanometer cracks & the composition of the active material. Combining SEM with in-situ Raman spectroscopy extends the traditional SEM capabilities to organic and inorganic material identification. X-ray microscopy, furthermore, delivers 3D non-destructive imaging of full battery packs and localized high-resolution information, thus allowing the identification of regions of interest within the battery material volume. This presentation will demonstrate the application of these techniques to Li-ion battery research, including examples on anode, cathode, binder, and separator materials.
This webinar will focus on the following key topics:
• Introduction to available microscopic investigation techniques
for Li-ion battery research:
– Light Microscopy
– Scanning Electron Microscopy
– X-ray Microscopy
– Raman Spectroscopy
• Review of recent battery imaging studies in published literature
• Case studies on using correlative microscopy to characterize battery performance & failure mechanisms
Presenter
Stefanie Freitag – Market Segment Manager at Carl Zeiss
Stefanie is Market Segment Manager in Materials Research at Carl Zeiss Microscopy in Munich. She holds a Diploma in Engineering Physics, gained first work experiences in a nuclear fusion reactor with a pioneering concept in Greifswald, then worked 3 years in the solar industry in Ulm & Hsinchu, Taiwan. In her current position she analyzes and defines new microscopic solutions for specific materials segments including light microscopy, electron microscopy, x-ray microscopy and chemical methods like Raman spectroscopy.
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