PhD student at IFPEN, in collaboration with ENSMA, I work on the effect of confinement on thermal runaway in lithium-ion batteries and on its propagation.
Lithium-ion batteries are at the heart of the energy transition, yet they carry a well-known weakness: following an impact, an internal defect or overheating, a cell can run away and release a large amount of heat and gas within seconds. What happens next depends strongly on the space the cell sits in. In a real module or pack, a cell is never in open air it is confined. Pressure builds up, gases accumulate, heat stays trapped, and the failure of a single cell can then trigger that of its neighbours. Understanding this coupling between pressure, heat and gas is essential to designing safer storage systems.
My experiments are carried out in a high-pressure, high-temperature chamber instrumented for pressure, temperature and gas emissions. I first study runaway onset on NMC811 pouch cells, then its propagation within mini-modules. Alongside the experimental work, I develop models and simulations that help interpret the measurements and extend the results beyond the tested conditions.
