A Study on Thermal Runaway of Commercial Lithium-Ion Cells: Influence of SOC, Cell Chemistry and Ageing Status on Safety Performance

The safety of lithium-ion batteries has received increasing concerns in recent years. To understand the thermal runaway of lithium-ion cells, we employed the Accelerating Rate Calorimeter (ARC) to perform external heating test on commercial 18,650-type cells. Onset temperature of thermal runaway (To), a critical parameter for thermal runaway behaviour, was obtained from the tests. In this work, the influence of cell chemistry, state of charge (SOC) and ageing status on safety behaviour was investigated in detail. The parameters and results obtained from this work could be applied to guide modelling for preventing and predicting thermal runaway.