Safety in electric vehicles and the automotive market in general, is one of those issue that is most taken with special attention. Among the most delicate elements of cars is the battery, which for different reasons could fail and cause a fire. Researchers from the University of Singapore have developed a system to prevent this kind of situation.
A long time ago, several Tesla users reported fires in the batteries of their electric cars, and while it is not something common, it could happen at any time. For this reason, having a formula to counteract this situation if it happen is vital, and this scientist have achieved through this study by preventing the dendrites that cause short circuits with the damaged cells and spread the fire to the rest of the package.
Dendrites are tiny tree-shaped structures that grow inside the lithium battery as needle-like projections. When this happens, it could penetrate the separator that prevents the electrodes (cathode and anode) from touching each other, in addition to increasing unwanted reactions, accelerating unit failures.
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Such a junction between the cathode and anode could generate a short circuit that ignites the battery and spreads throughout the unit and so on. However, researchers at the University of Singapore developed an extra layer, as a kind of shield, which is located in the separator to avoid the contact mentioned above.
The researchers’ method is interesting in how it is approached, because instead of avoiding or generating a system to avoid the dendrites formation, the scientists chose to block the effects that this element can generate by covering the electrode separator with an extra layer of conductive material.
According to the research data, more than 50 tests were carried out, none of which produced short circuits, providing an encouraging picture regarding the advancement of safety in electrified vehicles. Now, integrating this technology in cars would imply a minimum increase of 5% in the cost of production, which generates peace of mind knowing that it is not an expensive new system.
Written by | Ronald Ortega
