Fundamental Insights into Battery Thermal Management and Safety

To break away from the trilemma among safety, energy density, and lifetime, we present a new perspective on battery thermal management and safety for electric vehicles. We give a quantitative analysis of the fundamental principles governing each and identify high-temperature battery operation and heat-resistant materials as important directions for future battery research and development to improve safety, reduce degradation, and simplify thermal management systems. We find that heat-resistant batteries are indispensable toward resistance to thermal runaway and therefore ultimately battery safety. Concurrently, heat-resistant batteries give rise to long calendar life when idling at ambient temperatures and greatly simplify thermal management while working, owing to much enlarged temperature difference driving cooling. The fundamentals illustrated here reveal an unconventional approach to the development of current and future battery technologies as society moves toward ubiquitous electrified transportation.