Qinpei Chen

Combustion calorimetry of carbonate electrolytes used in lithium ion batteries

In this article, some of the combustion properties of three carbonate solvent mixtures commonly used as the electrolytes of lithium ion batteries are considered by means of the ISO 5660 cone calorimeter. Experimental findings reveal that the heat release rate, the most important parameter in fire science, exhibits a significant variation among the carbonate mixtures. Other key parameters governing the fire-induced hazards such as total heat release, mass loss rate, combustion efficiency, and concentration of the major exhaust gases are also determined and analyzed. Furthermore, as some researchers argue that oxygen consumption calorimetry is likely to over-predict the chemical heat release for lithium ion cells, another thermal chemistry method based on stoichiometry for heat release rate calculation is adopted. Heat release rate results of the three carbonate solvent mixtures obtained by these two separate methods are found to be in good agreement. Thus, oxygen consumption calorimetry is considered to be an appropriate technique to determine the heat release in fires in relation to electrolytes of lithium ion batteries.

Burning Characteristics of Azeotropic Binary Blended Fuel Pool Fire

A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the burning characteristics of blended fuel pool fires. The azeotropic binary mixtures blended by ethanol and n-Heptane were selected as blended fuel in experiment. The fuel temperature, fire behaviors, burning rate and flame radiation were recorded in experiments. The result show that azeotropism play an important role in the burning process, the fuel temperature was decrease and the burning rate was increased. The flame radiant fraction of azeotrope has proportional relation with the radiation faction of component.