Built In Sensors Make Lithium-Ion Batteries Safer

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RTS directly monitors the temperature inside the cell where the reaction is taking place and can detect temperature spikes more quickly and accurately than surface sensors. If the sensor detects that the inside is too hot, it will shut down the current flow in the battery.

Penn State was the first university to make large-format Li-ion cells in the lab and it’s that technology that allows researchers to insert and test these sensors.

“We make the batteries in our lab and then test them in our lab,” said Guangsheng Zhang, research associate in mechanical engineering. “Very few universities have the capabilities to make their own batteries.”

RTS is a step toward a larger vision at Penn State to create smart batteries. Smart batteries would have numerous built-in sensors and actuators to enhance battery performance, life, and safety. Battery operators could not only detect what is happening inside the battery, but they could also change the internal state of the battery – for example heating a battery so that it would work in extreme cold.

Emerging technologies such as robots and drones are limited by the capabilities of the batteries needed to power them. Enhanced batteries would provide a tremendous opportunity to improve those technologies.

This research was published online in Scientific Reports, a journal in the Nature Publishing Group, on December 11, 2015, and funded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Computer-Aided Engineering for Electric-Drive Vehicle Batteries (CAEBAT) project. Penn State and EC Power collaborated on the project. The paper authors were Guangsheng Zhang, Lei Cao, Shanhai Ge, Chao-Yang Wang, and Chris Rahn from Penn State, and Christian E. Shaffer from EC Power.

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