Fire blanket and intumescent coating materials for failure resistance

Abstract

There is major fire safety concern about failure propagation of thermal runaway in multicell lithium-ion batteries. This article overviews the passive fire-protection approach based on thermal insulation by intumescent coating materials and fire blankets for viable failure resistance. The intumescent coating will expand (up to 100× on heating) to form a thick, porous char layer and act as a thermal barrier to insulate the substrate. It is also used to seal around openings in a wall or floor to impede the spread of fire and smoke. High-temperature fire blankets are made of noncombustible or flame-resistant fabric materials (e.g., aramids, fiberglass, amorphous silica, preoxidized carbon, and mineral fibers). Both working intumescent coating and fire blankets can block a significant portion (typically 60 to 90%) of the incident heat. Impact-resistant high-strength fabrics, in either soft or rigid forms, can also be used as parts of multilayer protection assembly. Thus, multilayer assemblies can be used for various commercial products, including passive and active fire-protection blankets, battery-cell partitions, confinement bags and containers, packaging materials, and personal protective equipment.