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Safe and sustainable cities will depend on lithium-ion batteries to power our modern lives. But what are the costs?

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Lithium-ion batteries in your favorite devices make our daily lives possible, but they also come with risks. Join the search for safer solutions.

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Lithium-ion batteries in your favorite devices make our daily lives possible, but they also come with risks. Join the search for safer solutions.

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Overview

With the Science of Thermal Runaway, students will:

Learn what thermal runaway is and how a lithium-ion battery works
Explore how and why battery-powered devices are designed to prevent physical damage
Investigate how overcharging relates to thermal runaway
Understand how thermal runaway starts and spreads
Engineer their own solutions for creating safe battery enclosures

This pathway can be completed in 2-3 class periods, with options to extend an additional 1-2 class periods.

Relevant NGSS Standards

Engineering Design
Energy
Matter and its Interactions

This topic was produced with support from

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The Science of

The pathway is broken down into 6 main sections.

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Start Pathway

What is thermal runaway?

Thermal runaway is the problem we’re trying to solve. In order to solve this problem, we need to understand it.

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How does a lithium-ion battery work?

You know that thermal runaway is a phenomenon that can affect lithium-ion batteries. In order to understand thermal runaway, it’s important to understand what a lithium-ion battery is – and how it works.

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Why are battery-powered devices designed to prevent physical damage?

In most instances, lithium-ion batteries function normally, charging and discharging energy without issue. Thermal runaway can occur when something alters the normal function of a battery by physically damaging it.

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How does overcharge relate to thermal runaway?

Damage is not the only cause of thermal runaway. Another potential cause is overcharge.

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How does thermal runaway spread?

A lithium-ion battery is made of multiple lithium-ion cells. Often, lithium-ion batteries are stored and transported near many other lithium-ion batteries. Because of this, it is important to know what will happen to nearby cells if one cell enters thermal runaway.

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Solve the scenario

With your updated understanding of thermal runaway, it’s time to revisit the thermal runaway scene we saw at the beginning of this exploration. You might observe multiple potential causes for the thermal runaway.

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In-class Resources

This topic includes stand-alone resources that can be used on their own or in combination with each other.

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