“Despite 50 years of existence, the batteries remain difficult to analyze”: an ultrasonic technology identifies the risk of fire and bluff engineers
A battery cell seriously damaged by a thermal runaway – the type of accident that ultrasound could now help to prevent. © Shutershock
Fires caused by defective lithium-ion batteries are no longer isolated cases. Between the scooters that blaze in the stairwells and the smartphones that take fire in the middle of theft, the question is no longer if, but when. Recently, We explained to you why 84 % of French people are poorly used their batteriesaccording to a study as clear as alarming. From now on, a team of researchers from the Drexel University thinks they have found an elegantly elegant parade: detect weak signals inside cells before it is too late … thanks to ultrasound.
Safety Lithium-ion battery: ultrasonic technology to detect fire risks
In the field of energy security, innovation does not always make a lot of noise. Except maybe when it comes to ultrasound. It is precisely this discreet but formidably specifically specified technology that a team of American researchers has developed to scan the lithium-ion battery cells and locate the beginnings of a thermal runaway.
Thanks to ultrasound, we are able to see what the eye cannot detect, and to intervene before the battery becomes dangerous.
The principle is clear: by sending sound waves through the cell, it is possible to draw up a real card of internal defects. Dry areas, displaced components, gas pockets … so many signals invisible to the naked eye, but which resonate strongly in the sensor ear. The result? A flash, non -destructive, and above all usable diagnosis on a large scale in production chains.
Diagram from the publication of Drexel showing the analysis of a lithium-ion cell by ultrasound: from the propagation of the wave to the acoustic image revealing the internal defects invisible © Sam Amsterdam, Wesley Chang, Direct Science
This method, much less expensive than X -rays currently used in the industry, has already convinced the startup SES AI, specializing in new generation batteries. Engineers can thus correct their prototypes in real time, without dismantling the cells or waiting for them to explode them on the nose.
Our batteries often deteriorate silently … It was time to invent a way of listening to this silence.
The icing on the battery: the researchers are already aiming to go from 2D to 3D, for an even finer in -depth analysis. And in the medium term, one could even consider sufficient miniaturization to integrate this acoustic monitoring directly into electric vehicles. An inner ear shape of the battery, in a way.
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