Blowing up batteries to improve safety features

BBC : To find ways to make batteries safer, researchers are looking more closely at what causes them to fail. Paul Shearing of University College London and his colleagues exposed a pair of lithium-ion batteries to extreme heat and then watched them explode. They performed their experiments at the European Synchrotron Research Facility in Grenoble, France, where they used high-speed x-ray computed tomography to look inside the batteries as they were heated to 250 °C. A thermal camera recorded the process as the batteries reached a key point, called thermal runaway, when the escalating internal heat starts a chain reaction of destruction. The researchers observed that the battery with an internal cylindrical support held up longer against the extreme heat than the one without. They plan to perform further tests and expose batteries to other potential problems.