Thermal runaway prevention and mitigation for lithium-ion battery-powered electric aircraft: Challenges and perspectives

Technologies for preventing and mitigating thermal runaway in electric aircraft are essential for ensuring passenger and flight safety, optimizing battery performance, and extending battery lifespan in the coming age of aviation electrification. However, limited research effort has been dedicated to thermal runaway on electric aircraft. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current understanding of thermal runaway and the various technologies to prevent or mitigate thermal runaway. The eligibility of these technologies for electric aircraft and future research directions are also discussed. Among the strategies, liquid cooling is more effective than air cooling in terms of heat dissipation, and moving to thermochemical materials from phase change materials (PCMs) will enhance heat absorption performance. Currently, thermal insulation is the most widely used thermal runaway prevention and mitigation strategy, while bio-inspired materials offer unique benefits. Active fire retarding may be too heavy for electric aircraft; passive fire retarding, especially when combined with PCMs, is worth further investigation. In general, despite its critical importance, the development of thermal runaway prevention and mitigation is still in its early stages. More research efforts, especially experimental studies under actual flight conditions, should be carried out in future studies.