Advanced Diagnosis and Early Warning Strategies on Degradation and Safety of Lithium-ion Batteries

Use of electric vehicles (EV) reduces the effects of the fossil fuel-based transportation sector on global climate and increases the utilization of energy generation with renewable technologies. The worldwide manufacturers in the automotive industry, within ten to thirty years, aim to replace internal combustion engines with electric motors in all of their products, ranging from passenger cars to heavy duty vehicles. Even today, the share of electric vehicles steadily increases in the market. However, there still remains problems to be solved before the complete replacement of gasoline engine. One of the major issues, is the safety concern associated with the lithium-ion based battery technology largely utilized in this application. It is crucial to be on the safe side, even though is it impossible to always have a complete and effective solution for this.

It is, therefore, vital to have early warning measures before some fatal accident occurs. There should be on-board devices continuously monitoring the status of the battery in operando and issue a warning message according to the severity of the failure. EV regulations of United Nations are getting more stringent every day. Accordingly, after a warning is given in advance, there has to be a minimum of five minutes evacuation time before thermal propagation. This strict regulation, increases the importance of having accurate and timely warnings.

The purpose of this Research Topic is to gather existing knowledge on safety problems, their causes and mitigation strategies for lithium-ion based battery technology, but more importantly propose and describe novel approaches that warn passengers and allow time to save their lives. In lithium-ion battery context, following topics are in the scope, but not limited to;

• Diagnosis of degradation in battery cells and identification and elucidation of mechanisms behind gassing-swelling-venting, electrolyte decomposition, lithium dendrite formation, disintegration-dissolution of active materials, separator breakdown, thermal stability, fast charge and overcharge susceptibility, etc.,
• Development of strategies to alleviate degradation phenomena and establishment of test standards,
• Insights into thermal runaway by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, coulometry, calorimetry, gas chromatography, magnetometry, etc.,
• Development, design and utilization of on-board detection systems issuing early warning at different levels of safety, specifically to save the battery pack, the vehicle or human lives. Use of gas, temperature, force and magnetoelectric sensors, audio equipment, impedance analyzers, etc., to monitor state of the battery and devise a warning algorithm.

All types of articles, including original research, review, mini review, brief research reports, application design comments and opinion articles are welcome.

Keywords: Lithium-ion batteries, Thermal runaway detection, Safety measures, Operando safety devices, Warning algorithms

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.