A global first by an international giant! Another disruptive technological innovation in flame retardancy of power batteries!

Thermal runaway of power batteries , which in turn causes electric vehicle fires and even explosions, has always been a major concern for consumers, battery manufacturers, and vehicle manufacturers. In order to overcome this pain point, companies in the entire global new energy industry chain have been tirelessly conducting various attempts and research.

Recently, an international giant company announced that it has successfully developed advanced plastic materials that can prevent battery thermal runaway .

The world's longest heat-blocking time

LG Chem (LG Energy Solution's parent company) announced on April 25 that the company has been conducting continuous research and development since 2009 and has finally developed a special flame retardant material that can be used in battery packs with the world's best performance.

At present, LG Chem has completed the construction of a mass production system and plans to start full production from 2023 based on customer demand. At the same time, it is applying for patents in South Korea, the United States, Europe and other places, and plans to expand the application of materials to other industrial fields such as automobiles starting with the supply of battery pack casings.

It can be seen that LG Chem's battery flame-retardant materials have been verified by its customers and are about to be mass-produced for commercial use.

 Photo/LG Chem

Thermal runaway is the main cause of fires in electric vehicle batteries. Thermal runaway is a phenomenon in which heat is generated due to multiple factors exerting pressure on battery cells. When the internal temperature of the battery rises above a certain level due to short circuits caused by problems such as overvoltage or overdischarge, flames will be generated, which will cause fires.

The new special flame-retardant material developed by LG Chem is a high-function engineering plastic with a variety of material groups including polyphenylene ether (PPO), nylon resin polyamide (PA), polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), etc. This material has excellent heat resistance. When used in the battery pack housing of electric vehicles, it has a longer heat insulation time and better dimensional stability than ordinary flame-retardant plastics, and will not deform when the temperature changes.

In addition, LG Chem's test results show that when thermal runaway causes a battery fire, even if the temperature is as high as 1000°C, the material can delay the flame spread by more than 400 seconds, which is currently the longest time in the world, and its flame retardant performance is more than 45 times higher than that of ordinary flame retardant plastics.

LG Chem said that if the company's newly developed flame-retardant material is applied to the battery pack casing, it is expected to delay the burning time when the electric vehicle battery catches fire and prevent the spread of flames, thereby buying more precious time for the driver to evacuate and extinguish the fire.

Or will first improve its own battery safety issues

Founded in 1947, LG Chem is affiliated to LG Group, one of the three largest groups in South Korea. Its business covers four major areas: petrochemicals, batteries, advanced materials, and life sciences.

The battery business is independently operated by LG Energy Solution (LGES), a wholly-owned subsidiary spun off in December 2020.

According to statistics from SNE Research, a South Korean market research organization, LG Energy Solution's power battery shipments in January-February 2022 were 7.4GWh, a year-on-year increase of 37.6%. Its market share was 13.8%, ranking second in the world after CATL .

As the world's second largest power battery manufacturer, LG Energy Solution's batteries have repeatedly been involved in safety accidents, involving energy storage batteries and electric vehicle batteries.

The most recent accident of energy storage battery occurred on April 18, when a storage battery facility in Arizona, USA, caught fire and smoke. The energy storage project has more than 3,200 lithium-ion batteries with a total energy storage capacity of 10MW/40MWh, and the batteries are from LG Chem. The fire department has confirmed that there was thermal runaway of the batteries in the energy storage project, but the specific cause of the accident is still under investigation.

The situation of electric vehicle batteries is not much better. The recall of electric vehicles equipped with LG New Energy Batteries due to fire risks has been going on for two years, involving a total of about 440,000 electric vehicles from major automakers, including Stellantis, Volkswagen, General Motors, Hyundai Motor and Mercedes-Benz.

This year, LG Energy Solution may also get a "big surprise" in electric vehicle batteries. On April 6, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that they are investigating LG Energy Solution's battery failure safety issues and will send a letter to LG Energy Solution and other automakers that may purchase the same or similar batteries from LG Energy Solution to ensure that all defective batteries have been recalled by automakers. The investigation involves a total of 138,324 new energy vehicles .

The endless fires and recalls have made LG Energy Solution's batteries the most unreliable, and its brand image and credibility have continued to decline. However, this has not hindered LG Energy Solution's rapid development. In February this year, it entered the energy storage system integration market and carried out large-scale cooperation with affected car companies in many aspects before and after the accident.

If the high-function battery flame-retardant plastic material developed by LG Chem is successfully mass-produced, it will most likely be used first in the batteries produced by LG Energy Solution, which is expected to improve its own battery safety issues to a certain extent and reverse its negative image of insecurity.