From ESS News
The global transition to sustainable energy systems requires battery energy storage technologies that deliver both high performance and robust safety. While lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) currently dominate deployment, their safety limitations – particularly thermal runaway driven by flammable liquid electrolytes – remain a concern.
Researchers from Newcastle University in the UK, in collaboration with the Fire Service Academy in Poland, have conducted a comprehensive comparison of three key technologies: conventional lithium-ion, emerging sodium-ion (SIB), and solid-state batteries (SSB). They argue that although resistance to thermal runaway is important, meaningful cross-chemistry comparisons require a holistic, multi-attribute safety framework tailored to different deployment scenarios.
Their assessment evaluates initiation resistance, abuse tolerance, failure severity (including maximum temperature, heat release, and heating rate), gas hazards (volume, flammability, toxicity), propagation risk, and application-specific constraints, such as the difference between confined marine transport and grid storage systems equipped with active fire suppression.
The team established a detailed safety baseline for LIBs, examining failure mechanisms under thermal, electrical, and mechanical abuse. This included analysing thermal runaway progression, gas evolution profiles, and cell-to-cell propagation dynamics.
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