Thermal Runaway Mechanism of Lithium Ion Battery for Electric Vehicles: A Review

The safety concern is the main obstacle that hinders the large-scale applications of lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles. With continuous improvement of lithium ion batteries in energy density, enhancing their safety is becoming increasingly urgent for the electric vehicle development. Thermal runaway is the key scientific problem in battery safety research. Therefore, this paper provides a comprehensive review on the thermal runaway mechanism of the commercial lithium ion battery for electric vehicles. Learning from typical accidents, the abuse conditions that may lead to thermal runaway have been summarized. The abuse conditions include mechanical abuse, electrical abuse, and thermal abuse. Internal short circuit is the most common feature for all the abuse conditions. The thermal runaway follows a mechanism of chain reactions, during which the decomposition reaction of the battery component materials occurs one after another. A novel energy release diagram, which can quantify the reaction kinetics for all the battery component materials, is proposed to interpret the mechanisms of the chain reactions during thermal runaway. The relationship between the internal short circuit and the thermal runaway is further clarified using the energy release diagram with two cases. Finally, a three-level protection concept is proposed to help reduce the thermal runaway hazard. The three-level protection can be fulfilled by providing passive defense and early warning before the occurrence of thermal runaway, by enhancing the intrinsic thermal stability of the materials, and by reducing the secondary hazard like thermal runaway propagation.