• • • BATTERIES & CHARGERS • • • Early li-ion battery instability detection
When lithium-ion batteries become unstable they are prone to explode or ignite with devastating consequences, especially in storage.
ecause li-ion batteries heat up before they catch fire, the best way to limit the impact of battery instability is to monitor battery temperatures. This enables the creation of an early battery instability detection system that provides sufficient time to isolate unstable li-ion batteries.
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An abundance of batteries Lithium-ion batteries are the main energy storage vehicle that helps drive the renewable energy transition. In addition, they power electric vehicles and bicycles. They are also the most common power storage device for laptops, tablets, smartphones and other portable electronic devices. Li-ion battery instability however is a major concern for the safety of people, products and infrastructure. Fires caused by unstable li-ion batteries are dangerous and difficult to extinguish. Along with increasing numbers of batteries in use, the number of li-ion fires is on the rise. In storage, these fires can easily create a chain effect with dire consequences.
Examples are widespread:
• On January 16, 2023, an explosion and fire destroyed a lithium warehouse near Rouen, France.
• On September 17, 2023, a lithium-ion battery warehouse burned down in Essex, United Kingdom.
• On February 18 2024, the warehouse of a battery recycling plant caught fire near Toulouse, France, burning 900 tonnes of lithium batteries.
• On May 30, 2024, a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries destroyed a warehouse in Chelsea, Maine, USA.
• On June 24, 2024, in Hwaesong, South Korea, a battery production facility was destroyed by a fire, caused by exploding li-ion batteries in the facility’s warehouse. 23 employees lost their lives.
• On January 17, 2025, fire erupted in one of the world’s largest li-ion battery storage facilities in Moss Landing, California, USA.
Thermal runaway
Li-ion batteries do not ignite or explode suddenly. Before this event, temperatures inside the battery start to rise, in a phenomenon known as thermal runaway. These rising temperatures create a chain reaction inside the battery that will eventually ignite the cell’s materials. In turn, a burning battery can easily set off batteries in its vicinity until all batteries, the infrastructure itself, neighbouring infrastructure and all people present, are threatened. Li-ion batteries are notoriously difficult to extinguish, which further exacerbates this problem.
Thermal runaway in li-ion batteries can be caused by many factors, including dropping the battery, bumping into it, exposing it to water or overcharging the battery. It is always advisable to isolate batteries affected by any of the above factors, and to thoroughly check for damage. This also involves any battery cell box that fell off a pallet during handling.
But how to thoroughly check for damage? How to be certain at any moment about the stability of stored batteries in a warehouse? The best way is to constantly monitor battery temperatures, because rising temperatures provide the earliest indication of battery instability.
Current tools
Several solutions exist to monitor li-ion battery temperatures. In some warehouses, a coworker walks the facility with a portable thermal camera
8 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • FEBRUARY 2025
every 30 minutes to check for anomalies. Other battery warehouses use fixed thermal cameras, an expensive setup that can provide early warning for stored batteries in sight of any of the cameras. Active, battery-powered RFID tags with integrated temperature sensors are also used. These send temperature data on tagged items to RFID readers until their internal battery needs replacement, on average after 3 years. Their main drawback is the price of the tag.
Passive RFID temperature labels Brady Corporation, a worldwide identification specialist, recently came up with a new, patent-pending solution to monitor li-ion battery temperatures. In Brady’s solution, passive RFID labels are used that do not require an internal battery. These labels have a lower price point and do not bring in additional batteries in Li-ion
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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