Performance of Protection Devices Integrated into Lithium-Ion Cells during Overcharge Abuse Test

Lithium-ion batteries currently represent the most suitable technology for energy storage in various applications, such as hybrid and electric vehicles (HEVs and BEVs), portable electronics and energy storage systems. Their wide adoption in recent years is due to their characteristics of high energy density, high power density and long life cycle. On the other hand, they still face challenges from a safety point of view for the possible faults that could generate several problems, ranging from simple malfunctioning to a dangerous thermal runaway. Overcharge is one of the most critical types of faults, and, depending on the level of abuse, it may trigger a thermal runaway. To prevent high levels of overcharge abuse, some cells include integrated protection devices that cut off the circuit when a critical condition is met. In this paper, the performance of these protection devices is evaluated to assess their effectiveness. The cells were tested at different ambient temperatures and current levels. In the worst-case scenarios, the maximum cell temperature slightly exceeded 70 °C and the State of Charge (SOC) reached a peak of 127% when the Current Interruption Device (CID) was activated. These conditions were not critical, so serious events such as thermal runaway were not triggered. These outcomes confirm the effectiveness of the CID, which always intervenes in maintaining a safe state. However, since it never intervened in the overcharge abuse tests, a specific set up was also used to investigate the operation of the other protection device, the Positive Temperature Coefficient.