Xuning Feng and his team have invented thermal failure safety protection technology for energy storage battery systems in extensive collaboration with international scholars, systematically filling the safety technology gap in battery applications. The research enables new systems, lower cost and higher specific energy lithium-ion batteries, output from materials science research, and safe and reliabe energy storage systems. He has also contributed to the achievement of the "carbon neutrality" goal from the unique perspective of "battery thermal safety", which provides safety technology for the large-scale application of new and renewable energy sources.
In addition, he has made key breakthroughs in the runaway thermal testing technology for large size batteries, and has identified the multi-level failure release energy of "internal short circuit - thermal runaway - combustion," which provides quantitative and comparable hazard evaluation indicators for different types of energy storage batteries, and has been widely applied in dozens of well-known enterprises and research institutions at home and abroad, guiding the accident investigation of battery failure.
The failure hazard of large energy storage battery systems is high and the experimental cost is extremely high, making it difficult to design safety protection for the whole disaster-causing process. Feng presided over the development of the battery thermal runaway model simulation technology, which realized the high-precision simulation of the thermal spread process of the battery system and significantly improved the research and development efficiency of the safety design of new electric vehicle models, and energy storage power plants.
He also proposed and collaborated on the development of a flame retardant and fire suppression compartment technology based on "composite phase change" materials, which can achieve a fire-free battery module with no failure spread and is being tested by many companies. He proposed a "material-monomer" closed-loop linkage test scheme for battery runaway reaction analysis, invented the chemical reaction time sequence map for characterizing battery thermal runaway behaviors. Based on the reaction time sequence, Feng developed the battery thermal-electrical coupling failure feature extraction technology, capturing the abnormal change characteristics of the battery's essential state parameters, and developed a model-based multi-signal warning algorithm. The algorithm operates stably and the detection rate in the field is significantly higher than the industry average.
With Feng's work as the core, his group members founded multiple companies to solve the battery safety problem. Focusing on promoting the thermal safety of the energy storage battery systems, these companies have been closely collaborating with the Tsinghua team regarding technique development and applications. Their safety technology has already covered approximately 75% of China's new energy vehicles while progressively expanding to new energy and renewable energy businesses, contributing to the achievement of the "carbon neutrality" by guarding battery safety.
