China Safety Science Journal ›› 2024, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (3): 39-44.doi: 10.16265/j.cnki.issn1003-3033.2024.03.0878

• Safety engineering technology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Analysis of thermal runaway explosion overpressure and liquid nitrogen inerting effect of lithium battery

ZHANG Shaoyu(), WANG Yue, DONG Haibin, CHEN Ye   

  1. Tianjin Fire Science and Technology Research Institute of MEM, Tianjin, 300381, China
  • Received:2023-09-20 Revised:2023-12-28 Online:2024-03-28 Published:2024-09-28

Abstract:

In order to clarify inerting effect of liquid nitrogen on the thermal runaway explosion of a 280Ah energy storage lithium battery, based on experiment analysis of composition and explosion limit of battery thermal runaway gas, FLACS was used to simulate explosion overpressure of battery thermal runaway gas in a storage container. Standard experiments and real experiments were carried out to analyze inerting effect of liquid nitrogen on battery thermal runaway gas. Results show that thermal runaway gas explosion overpressure increases gradually with an increase of its volume. Ignition of more than 1.1 m3 of thermal runaway gas can cause serious consequences. A single 280 Ah lithium iron phosphate battery in 100% charged state, heating in a vacuum state,heating in a vacuum state can trigger thermal runaway of the battery and produce 134.6 L of thermal runaway gas with CO2, H2, CO, CH4 and C2H4 as the main components. Thermal runaway gas is a flammable gas, and explosion limit range is between 8.5% and 45.5%. N2 can effectively inert thermal runaway gas and significantly reduce the explosion limit range of thermal runaway gas. Limiting N2 volume fraction is 84.7%. Spray 69 kg liquid nitrogen into a 35 m3 energy storage container to inert battery thermal runaway gas. When volume fraction of N2 is higher than limiting nitrogen volume fraction, battery thermal runaway gas can be effectively inerted, and effective protection time is 2 200 s.

Key words: lithium battery, thermal runaway, explosion overpressure, liquid nitrogen, inerting effect, flame accelaratition simulatation (FLACS)

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