What parameters do we need to predict & detect imminent danger caused by a charging battery?

Dear Engineers,

Every month or year, charging batteries cost human lives and total household destruction.

I have successfully developed a Flame Detector which sends alert to internet broker over a wifi router once it detects "flame" near a charging battery.

Then, I want to improve it and add some more parameters to predict & detect imminent danger caused by a charging battery.

What suggestions could you make to improve my flame detector design? Thanks for your comments.

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0 anniel747 9 months ago

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0 HKPhysicist 9 months ago in reply to anniel747
The present version of my Flame Detector is very simple.

It contains an ESP32 MCU

2 semi-conductor infrared flame detectors connecting in parallel to 2 potential dividers respectively.

Another Microchip analog temperature sensor connecting to an analog input of the ESP32 MCU.

This combination works very well. It triggers alert when I light up a cigarette lighter near the infra-red flame sensor.
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0 dougw 9 months ago
I think your temperature senor is a good early warning method.

Other types of sensor to consider would be:

leakage of electrolyte

swelling of the battery

outgassing

physical damage such as punctures or cracks
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0 SensoredHacker0 9 months ago

assuming indirect observation, using sensors.
The camera based flame detection is one of the oldest sensor technologies in existence. Though most of the technologies are proprietary.
by the time a battery is on fire, the problem is too severe. if you have a confined space, where you could monitor gases present, you could develop a baseline, and monitor changes, which should tell you if a hazard is emerging, before an actual emergency emerges.

If only there was a way to detect issues with a battery before changing ... oh wait, there is, and they are integrated into many items.

I don't mean to dissuade you, it is indeed a problem that needs more advancements.
what if you could evacuate all the air from the storage container upon issue detection?
If you store a battery between 2 insulated metal plates, and monitor the system capacitance, perhaps you could figure out safe charging, discharging, and unsafe changing conditions, by captive load curves.
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0 anniel747 9 months ago in reply to HKPhysicist

Chemistry of the batteries to monitor?
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0 HKPhysicist 9 months ago in reply to anniel747

I focus on Li-batteries because its market is the biggest!
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0 anniel747 9 months ago in reply to HKPhysicist

With lithium if a flame is present it's way too late.
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0 LLNC 9 months ago in reply to HKPhysicist

make a silicone capsule around that battery to monitor volume changes with a strain gauge drown in it ... you'd monitor Pressure and Volume and Temperature... the IGLaw PV = nR T ..
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0 vmate 9 months ago in reply to SensoredHacker0

Pumping out all the air or replacing with some inert gas is completely pointless, lithium battery fires do not need any oxygen to burn, they generate it themselves.
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0 anniel747 9 months ago in reply to HKPhysicist

HKPhysicist said:
near a charging battery.

How do you detect the battery is charging?
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