Lower explosion limit of the vented gases from Li-ion batteries thermal runaway in high temperature condition

The thermal runaway of lithium-ion battery (or Li-ion battery, LIB) results in scrap of battery and fire, with the toxic and flammable gases generated. In this work, a self-made device was to collect gases from LIB thermal runaway, when the batteries were under different states of charge (SOC), temperatures of the environment and powers of external heating. Three samples of the collected gases were analyzed to get the results of the composition and content by chromatography-mass spectrometry system (GC-MS). The lower explosion limits (LELs) of the gases was tested by FRTA explosion limit instrument. And then the LEL of three analyzed samples whose composition and content were known by GC-MS were calculated via theoretical formulas. The calculated LELs were compared with those of the instrument test. The errors of the two results of three samples are 2.1%, 1.9%, and 0.4%. The Le Chatelier Formula and empirical formula provide a way to evaluate the LEL of the battery runaway gas more quickly.