If lithium-ion batteries were once viewed as an expensive energy storage solution with tenuous supply chains, mass production has made them both affordable and readily available for a wide variety of applications. Consumer electronics, electric vehicles and, importantly, battery-based energy storage systems (BESS) for solar power have all benefited.
At the same time, technology marches on. If early drivers of alternatives to lithium-ion such as price and supply are not as pressing, they remain in play and are joined by safety concerns and manufacturability issues. Recent research from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) notes that lithium-ion alternatives including alkali-metal anodes, solid electrolytes and earth-abundant materials such as sodium and sulfur are reaching commercialization in battery cells.
According to NREL researchers, some of the features of next-generation systems that promise safer, more resilient and lighter BESS have not been thoroughly evaluated for potential challenges, such as rapid gas release, toxic byproducts and extreme thermal reactions. While lithium-ion batteries are well understood by comparison due to their ubiquity and decades of operation, newer technologies require new research methods, NREL said.
NREL researchers have authored a peer-reviewed article in the journal Nature that examines issues raised by next-generation batteries and what new testing tools and procedures are needed to understand them better. The report offers perspectives on the following:
- How the safety and abuse tolerance of cells are likely to change for up-and-coming technologies;
- Challenges and opportunities for reimagining safe cell and battery designs;
- Gaps in current knowledge;
- Capabilities for understanding the hazards of thermal runaway and how to address them;
- How standard abuse tests may need to adapt to new challenges; and
- How research needs to support affected professionals, from pack designers to first responders, to manage hazards and ensure safe roll-out of next-generation cells into applications.
“We are seeing key differences in the kinetics, toxicity, mechanical robustness, and fire-suppression strategies for new materials,” said Donal Finegan, a senior energy storage scientist at NREL and one of the authors of the Nature article. “The better we understand these risks, the safer we can design and prepare battery systems of the future.”
According to NREL, recent breakthroughs in modeling and artificial intelligence can advance its understanding of new materials. These techniques will help ensure the safety of emerging battery designs and predict how they will behave in different applications, such as grid-scale BESS.
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