Explosion hazards from lithium-ion battery vent gas

Lithium-ion battery technology is rapidly being adopted in transportation applications and energy storage industries. Safety concerns, in particular, fire and explosion hazards, are threatening widespread adoption. In some failure events, lithium-ion cells can undergo thermal runaway, which can result in the release of flammable gases that pose fire and explosion hazards for the compartment housing the cells. However, there is little available information characterizing the flammability properties of the gases released after cell thermal runaway. In this paper, analytical and modeling methods to estimate explosion characteristics, such as lower flammability limit, laminar flame speed, and maximum over-pressure are evaluated for use in quantifying the effect of cell chemistry, state-of-charge and other parameters on the overall explosion hazard potential for confined cells. •Review of flammable gas production for various lithium-ion cells.•Use of open source software to calculate vent gas characteristics.•Estimation of lower flammability limit including the effect of diluents.•Computation of vent gas flame speed for cells.•Quantification of explosion pressures for different cells & chemistries.