리튬 배터리의 화재 및 폭발 위험성에 관한 연구 A Study on the Explosion and Fire Risk of the Lithium Battery-Author Sang-Bo Sim- Hoseo University
ABSTRACT
Due to recent development of IT technology, information level of Korea is said to be the world-best. Thus mobile devices such as cell phones, notebook, and tablet PC that could be used without limitations are trending. Along the trend, high energy high density secondary batteries used as the power source for portable devices are also in the spotlight, and among them Lithium battery demand is rising. Generally a Lithium battery should be certified with KS C 8541 (Lithium secondary battery rule) in order to be on the market. However, battery accidents are growing in number and people are raising questions about the safety of the batteries.
Certified Lithium battery’s safety is guaranteed within normal state, but at abnormal states such as damage to protective circuit, the danger rises due to elimination of minimum protection. Recent studies regarding Lithium batteries only measured ignition status for flammable gas, but did not provide detailed analysis. Also, risk analysis according to battery capacity and comparative analysis between the two representative batteries, Lithium Polymer battery and Lithium Ion battery are rarely carried out. Also, research about general danger of Lithium batteries such as ignition at high temperature environment is incomplete.
This study selected five types of Li-Polymer batteries and three types of Li-Ion batteries of different capacity in order to analyze ignition and fire danger according to usage environment. The results are as following.
1. We designed an ignition circuit using IEC type spark ignition test apparatus based on KS C IEC 60079-11 standard in order to measure the explosion hazard of Lithium battery spark discharge. Through measuring the ignition limit of methane, propane, ethylene, and helium, the result showed that gas with higher danger showed more explosion to less number of battery connection. Also, batteries with not Protection Circuit Module (PCM) exploded more often during connection with battery compared with batteries that had protection circuits.
2. An experiment was conduction using a pyrostat based on UL 1642 and KS C 8541 standard in order to measure Lithium battery’s explosion danger at high temperature environment. As the result, Li-Polymer batter with pack type external material had higher risk of explosion compared to cap type Li-Ion battery. Li-Polymer battery had 160~170℃ explosion between 1970~2700 seconds, and the explosion occurred for the electrolytes seeped out from the cracked battery pack after swelling due to evaporation. On the other hand, Li-Ion battery had 176~197℃ explosion between 3000~3800 seconds caused by vaporized electrolyte increasing the pressure within the battery and protruding to the vulnerable positive (+) end.
3. Short circuit was designed in order to measure the temperature increase according to the short circuit current. For batteries with protection circuit, there was no temperature change caused by short circuit current due to current limitation. However, for batteries with no protection circuit, 30.7~35.6A of maximum short circuit current was produced. For Li-Polymer battery, the current fell until 3.9~12.7A after the maximum short circuit current, but increased again to 5.5~17.8A, showing two-step curve pattern. The maximum temperature was 125℃. For Li-Ion battery, the maximum short circuit current fell steeply to 1.3A and decreased steadily, showing a single step curve pattern. It is because the PTC thermistor embed inside limited the flowing current. The maximum temperature was 95℃.
Thus in order to minimize the danger of Lithium battery explosion, the Lithium battery connection number and discharge characteristics should be considered when used at environment with flammable gas. And swelling and explosive characteristics should be considered when using Li-Polymer and Li-Ion batteries at high temperature environment. Also, to prevent hazards caused by mistakes and abnormal statues, a dual safety device of protection circuits are recommended.
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