Li-ion Battery Safety - Electrode Microscale to Cell Scale

The objective of this project is to develop and apply models of Li-ion batteries that bridge fundamental understanding at the microscale to cell and pack level macroscale, with a particular focus on battery safety under abnormal environments. The effort builds upon the foundation of unique modeling capabilities that represent electrochemical processes within three-dimensional intercalation-electrode structures. Thermal runaway is a primary cause of battery degradation, failure, and hazardous accidents. A major component of the project is to couple thermal and mechanical phenomena with electrochemical and transport processes. The modeling effort is closely coordinated with FIB-SEM and X-ray tomography measurements to reconstruct microstructures of actual battery electrodes. Additional experiments are focused on measuring physical and chemical attributes of the solid-electrolyte-interphase (SEI) layers that play an important role on thermal runaway events.