Battery Insiders Reflection - Thermal Management

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights and the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And welcome back. How are you doing, Bhavya, today? We are doing well. The sun is shining. We just had a wonderful talk about thermal management. And I want to hear your thoughts about it. Absolutely. I loved it. I mean, it's nice to kind of have, you know, also Catherine's expertise, you know, like learn from her inside and also her co-founder. I think it was really nice to have both perspectives on a topic, you know, to be honest, personally, like I heard about quite a bit, you know, in the news and of course reading about it, you know, you come across it, but it's not something I really depth into for like a bit more in depth and also get different perspectives. So I think it was really a fascinating session because, yeah, I mean, thermal management is very crucial, right? From different applications for mobile and stationary.

1:09I guess there's the two ones we spoke about most, you know, how to make sure that the temperature in the cell is controlled, which then, you know, again, is important for, you know, to have reliable power output, but also charging and things like this. And yeah, what I just found interesting is that, you know, in their case, they spoke a bit about their technology, right? To be like more like wax. And it's kind of like a really passive system, which is, I think, quite attractive because, you know, especially also in stationary and if you look vehicle to grid and things like this, you don't want to have like, you know, active cooling if you can avoid it because it will always drain extra power, right? And you don't want to drain it. So yeah, it was just really interesting, I think, to learn from them as a starter, but also here, you know, all the different kind of considerations related to our management and, you know, designing proper systems for proper applications.

2:01How about you? Well, yeah, I mean, agreed with you on all of that. When we first started talking about thermal management, I had, I was in the same kind of the same boat and thought, oh, I don't know too much about this. I wonder, you know, what, what, what we'll learn. But as I was listening, I realized, oh, wait, thermal runaway and like the risks and or like the safety hazards associated with batteries and like, you know, heat and fire incidents, those were the reasons that I got interested in batteries while I was working. And I thought, well, people are managing these every day. And if they're, you know, piled up somewhere that that their hazards associated with that, we've seen stories in the news recently, you know, I mean, we as more EVs get on the road and there are a few more incidents associated with them. I think, you know, these things have been coming to mind and customers ask, like, where, how do I, I hear these stories on the news, like how, how do I know that my battery's not going to do that?

3:08Or what's required for what, what are the safety concerns? So even consumers are asking questions that to be more educated on the topic. And so I think, and, you know, always with the policy hat, those are other things like that need to be included in policy as well as what are, how do you manage, safely manage these batteries and how do you ensure that the consumer who's driving it or using it on the day to day is also aware of any safety concerns. So, yeah, like I, I found the topic very interesting. I learned a lot about the tech, more technical aspects of how to actually physically manage heat. So that, I did find that part interesting too. But it did remind, it kind of almost like, like pulled at my memory, helped me remember a few of the reasons that I joined the battery world in the first place. Yeah. And I think that that's an interesting point. And also, I think very much connected, right, to many, how many people have seen batteries in the news would have been blown up battery or something, right, or like a big fire or something.

4:24And luckily they're quite rare, but yeah, it's of course something, you know, you want to, you want to avoid as much as you can. And it's interesting though, because, yeah, you know, I mean, that's, that's the very unusual case, right? I mean, the usual case is that you want to make sure that your, you know, your car can charge faster or, I mean, mostly can, you know, do, do more crazy kickstarts as was mentioned, you know, with the Tesla or Porsche, you know, it can go, I don't know, zero to a hundred kilometers per hour in less than two seconds or something like this, right? And for this, thermal management is quite important, which is maybe also more important for some than others. But another thing I found really fascinating, actually, to think about it again, is also not just heat as an issue, but also to be cold, right? Like freezing temperatures can be quite a big issue, which was mentioned quite a lot for degradation and things like that.

5:16And I found this quite interesting as well, right? To not just think of thermal management, you know, it's, I guess it's a bit like, you know, it's, I don't know, not a bad, not a good example, but essentially, you know, people always think of just heating things up and actually, you know, the cold can be quite a big issue. And here also, proper thermal management is quite important. And there's some crazy stories I've read in the past and I hope they don't, I don't know, I don't think it's used again anymore, but I think in the early days I read that people would short circuit the batteries, like in the, in the system, right? By itself to heat them up, like resistive heating, very quick ones, and very cold temperatures. I'm not sure if something like this is actually done or has been done, but yeah. So I think there's probably many smart ways to, to, to get, yeah, to, to control temperature in efficient ways.

6:07And that's an interesting, that's an, that's an interesting one that you raised that point about cold. Um, I feel like last I checked, I guess I'm sure the numbers have changed, but one of our largest markets, one of the largest markets, um, for EVs, or at least for Teslas, I guess, was a doorway. So it makes you wonder, you know, keep watching, let's see what happens, what, what comes out in five to 10 years, um, as batteries are more and more, as they become more prevalent in that region. Um, and in other cold climates. But yeah, that, that's interesting. I think, um, kind of, again, more big picture. One thing that has come up or has been discussed in the past is also educating or rather working with local firemen and women. So your local fire station here in the U S to help them or like work with them to make sure everyone is aligned and understands how batteries work, what could cause their runaway, how it should be managed, kind of like more immediate incident, uh, management, which I found very interesting.

7:16I've also partaken in this type of like incident management training. Um, and it's, it's very specific. And, you know, we had like the local, like fire, uh, police chief joined for the conversation because he needs his teams to know, or he rather, he needs to convey to his teams that, Hey, we're in a jurisdiction where, you know, there are more EVs or there is like EV manufacturing going on, we need to know how to manage this if and when we're called. Um, and it is unique to other instances because even, you know, even when it comes to like recycling, for example, you know, we talk about pyro, pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy and these different processes. But before you do any of that, the first question is how do you discharge the battery to avoid any thermal incidents? Um, when people are managing this on the day to day, like physically handling these batteries, um, it's a huge safety hazard. So sorry, I'm hitting the safety nail on the head, but I think it, if you, you know, just look at, make it like environment, you know, if you think about it as a environment focused and human focused problem, then it is a concern.

8:28So before you can really toot the horn for batteries, I think these are some of the things that have had to be figured out and, um, have had to continue as far as like design and production go as well. Yeah. Totally. Efficient design is quite important. And it's definitely, you know, I mean, it's, I think I've recovered as also in the session quite like, you know, the different aspects to it, right. From, from like, you know, from a consumer standpoint, what do you want, you know, from convenience, let's say, right. You want to have your battery to be charged at the maximum, you know, rate you can, you know, um, when you arrive, et cetera. That's why, you know, batteries would heat, heat it up before you go to the charging station, things like this. Another invite, we're talking about safety and, you know, it's, um, yeah, we need all of it right at the end of the day. So, um, yeah. Cool. Yeah, no, this was nice.

9:16I think it was nice to have a bit of a technical session. I'm looking forward to also dig into this more. I think we have some other sessions coming up also more on industrialization on production and things like this. And I think I'm also quite excited over time to, you know, address some of these more, you know, tricky, maybe topics sometimes from an outsider perspective, but I think it's really beneficial to, to have these insights and learn from each other. Well, thanks for sharing and learning. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. Well, thanks for sharing and learning. I'll see you next week, Simon. See you then.