Suppression of Li-ion Battery Fires

Abstract: This thesis presents a systematic literature review of fixed fire suppression systems and extinguishing agents for lithium-ion battery (LIB) fires. The review identifies 85 relevant sources published between 2013 and March 2023, and categorises different research experiments into cell-level, module-level, electric vehicle (EV) pack-level, battery energy storage system (BESS) rack-level and warehouse storage experiments, according to LIB configurations. It was found that about 67% of the publications focused on small-scale cell-level and 9% on module-level experiments. However, large-scale EV pack-level and BESS rack-level experiments are lacking. More than twenty (20) different extinguishing agents (water-based, gas-based, powder-based and novel combinations of agents) and two (2) dispersion modes (total flooding and direct internal injection) are evaluated systematically. The advantages and drawbacks of each type of extinguishing agent are compared and discussed based on dispersion modes and LIB configurations. Lastly, suggestions on how to apply the findings from the small-scale experiments onto large-scale experiments and key findings of potential applications of extinguishing agents in EV and BESS are presented.