Recent Li Ion Battery fire issues, causes and way forward..

Safety aspects are becoming major hurdles in large scale deployment of EV and energy storage based on Li Ion battery chemistry.. Thermal runaway of these batteries are a common problem, which leads to cascading chemical reactions and significant amount of heat release, fire and toxic smoke.

We have seen numerous incidents of battery fire in recent Ola scooters, the Tesla car model S, and in Samsung note 7 smart phone.. One of the major cause of Li IOn battery fire is the thermal runaway due to electrical short circuit within the battery due to heavy current drawl/recharge, mechanical abuse, etc..

THe Li Ion market is not regulated and low quality batteries or even deffective batteries are entering in the market supply chain causing the risk of increasing fire explosions..

Typically if the Li Ion battery reaches to temperatures beyond 130 degree, the high energy materials and chemical components are not stable at this temperature and lead to the explosions..

In order to mitigate the thermal runaway of the batteries companies are adopting multiple approaches which include the addition of flame retardants, Cell venting, and better battery controllers..

The battery fire will remain prevalent until we develop the battery battery standards and come up with reasonably safe battery chemistry..