Background
With the rapid popularization of electric vehicles, consumers and automobile manufacturers pay more and more attention to the problem of battery safety, and a power battery is not only a main power source and core parts of the electric vehicles, but also a main technical barrier for rapid development of the electric vehicles. The lithium ion battery has the advantages of high energy density, long cycle life, high environmental protection and the like, and is widely applied to a plurality of fields such as mobile phones, electric vehicles, mobile power supplies and the like.
Lithium ion batteries create a series of safety issues based on many factors, such as structural design, material selection, manufacturing process, operating performance, and external environment. For example, the internal part of a lithium ion battery has inherent thermal risks due to the material and structural characteristics, and a great amount of toxic or highly flammable gas can be generated due to triggering of thermal runaway due to objective causes such as lithium dendrites, mechanical abuse and the like in the long-term charge-discharge cycle, so that subsequent severe fire or explosion can be caused. In addition, the battery can generate heat in the charging and discharging processes, and is influenced by factors such as charging and discharging multiplying power, working temperature and the like, so that the temperature of the battery is increased, and once the heat cannot be timely dissipated, the battery can generate thermal runaway, and even serious safety accidents such as combustion, explosion and the like are caused. For another example, when the battery or the battery pack is collided or extruded due to a traffic accident, the inside of the battery may be damaged, resulting in thermal runaway, and the internal side reaction is excited to trigger the thermal runaway of the battery, which are the root cause of the fire of the new energy automobile. In order to avoid thermal diffusion phenomenon of the whole battery pack caused by thermal runaway of the battery, and further cause fire explosion of the battery pack, and cause great harm to the life safety of passengers, the existing technology can set some battery safety structural members inside the battery pack to inhibit or avoid the thermal diffusion phenomenon of the whole battery pack, and the safety structural members are required to have the safety characteristics of heat insulation, fire prevention, flame retardance and the like.
It is also worth noting that in addition to the above-mentioned heat-insulating and flame-retardant performance requirements, in order to reduce the influence of temperature in low-temperature environment on the performance of the battery pack, some heat-insulating structures are also required to be arranged in the battery pack, and at present, the heat-insulating layers are arranged in the battery pack in a common measure. The lithium ion battery mainly considers that when the lithium ion battery is in a low-temperature state, the available capacity is reduced, the charge and discharge power is limited, the lower the ambient temperature is, the lower the activity of an active substance in the battery is, the higher the internal resistance and viscosity of electrolyte are, the more difficult the ion diffusion is, the diffusion speed of lithium ions in an electrode at a low temperature is low, the lithium ions are difficult to be embedded and easy to be separated out, so that the capacity is rapidly reduced, and therefore, the service life of the battery is greatly influenced when the lithium ion battery is used at the low temperature, and the insulation structure is required to realize the guarantee of the low-temperature electric performance.
In summary, the heat insulation material used in the battery pack has low heat conductivity, and as it is arranged in the battery pack, it is also required to have the characteristics of flame retardance, insulation, softness, high temperature resistance, light weight and the like so as to meet the requirements of electrochemical performance, safety performance and the like. However, the common battery pack needs to be provided with the safety protection material and the heat insulation material at the same time, which makes the structure in the battery pack too complex, and the too complex structural design also affects the space arrangement in the pack, affects the space occupation ratio of the battery core to reduce the battery performance, and increases the design cost of the whole pack.
In view of this, the present invention has been made.
Detailed Description
The technical solution of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings and detailed description, but it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the examples described below are some, but not all, examples of the present invention, and are intended to be illustrative of the present invention only and should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the invention. The specific conditions are not noted in the examples and are carried out according to conventional conditions or conditions recommended by the manufacturer. The reagents or apparatus used were conventional products commercially available without the manufacturer's attention.
In the description of the present invention, it should be noted that the directions or positional relationships indicated by the terms "center", "upper", "lower", "left", "right", "vertical", "horizontal", "inner", "outer", etc. are based on the directions or positional relationships shown in the drawings, are merely for convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, and do not indicate or imply that the devices or elements referred to must have a specific orientation, be configured and operated in a specific orientation, and thus should not be construed as limiting the present invention. Furthermore, the terms "first," "second," and "third" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.
In the description of the present invention, unless explicitly stated or limited otherwise, the terms "mounted," "connected," and "connected" are to be construed broadly, and may be, for example, fixedly connected, detachably connected, or integrally connected, mechanically connected, electrically connected, directly connected, indirectly connected via an intervening medium, or in communication between two elements. The specific meaning of the above terms in the present invention will be understood in specific cases by those of ordinary skill in the art.
A first aspect of the present invention is to provide a battery pack.
The battery pack at least comprises a battery pack, a shell and a safety protection assembly. It is understood that the battery pack is a battery power system formed by combining a plurality of electric cells in a serial, parallel or series-parallel mode, in some alternative embodiments, the battery pack is formed by a single electric cell, such as a test battery, a button battery and the like, and the battery pack can be equivalent to the electric cell involved in the invention, and the invention does not limit the composition and structural relationship of the battery pack. It is also understood that the outer case is a structural member disposed at the outermost portion of the battery pack, and serves to support the overall mechanical structure and protect against external damage, and the shape, material or structure of the outer case is not limited in any way.
The position of the safety protection component is set according to the situation of the battery pack, and optionally, the safety protection component is arranged on the outer side of the battery pack or between the battery cells in the battery pack.
As a preferred embodiment, the safety protection component is arranged outside the battery pack and comprises a design that the safety protection component is partially coated or fully coated outside the battery pack. In the present invention, the structural appearance of the safety protection component and the battery pack is not limited, and the battery pack is exemplified by a cuboid, where the safety protection component may be disposed on the top surface or the bottom surface of the battery pack (the top surface and the bottom surface are defined as the planes adjacent to the housing of the battery pack), or the safety protection component may be disposed on any plane with a relatively large surface area of the battery pack, or the safety protection component covers a plurality of adjacent planes of the battery pack.
For the constitution of the safety protection component, the safety protection component at least comprises a nano protection shell and a plastic layer. The nano protection shell is made of a material with safety protection performance and heat preservation performance, and has the functions of achieving corresponding heat protection and heat preservation effects, the plastic sealing layer is encapsulated outside the nano protection shell, the nano protection shell is of a hollow structure, the inside of the nano protection shell is in a vacuum state, and the nano protection shell is provided with an air inlet and an air outlet.
As a preferred embodiment, the assembly process of the safety protection component comprises the following steps of firstly vacuumizing the inside of the nano protection shell, then filling the nano protection shell into a plastic package bag, and further extracting air in the plastic package bag to obtain the plastic package layer attached to the surface of the nano protection shell.
In a preferred embodiment, the material of the plastic layer includes polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and the molecular weight of the PET is 200 to 30000, including but not limited to any one or any two of numerical intervals including 200, 250, 1000, 5000, 10000, 15000, 20000, 25000, 30000, and the like.
The nano protective shell can be understood as a closed shell prepared based on nano materials, the inside of the closed shell is vacuum, and the nano protective shell can be prepared by sealing treatment after being built based on nano plates or can be directly prepared based on nano plate integrated technology.
As a more preferred embodiment, the nanomaterial includes nanoscale silica, a light shielding functional component, and a reinforcing fiber component.
In some optional embodiments, the particle size of the nano-scale silica is 0.1nm to 100nm, including but not limited to any one value or any two value intervals of 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 (nm).
In some alternative embodiments, the light shielding functional component includes at least one of metal oxides, such as reflective spinel dopants of ferric oxide, manganese dioxide, cobaltic oxide, copper oxide, and the like.
In some alternative embodiments, the reinforcing fiber component comprises inorganic fibers including, but not limited to, carbon fibers, boron fibers, glass fibers, and the like, or organic fibers including, but not limited to, polyester fibers, nylon fibers, polypropylene fibers, polyimide fibers, or certain natural fibers, and the like.
As a further preferable embodiment, the nano material comprises, by weight, 30-100 parts of nano silicon dioxide, 0.1-30 parts of a light shielding functional component and 0.01-10 parts of a reinforcing fiber component. The nanomaterial may optionally further comprise other functional components, such as components for enhancing the hardness, toughness, melting point, and the like of the sheet, and may be formulated according to actual needs by those skilled in the art.
As a further preferable embodiment, the preparation method of the nano material comprises the steps of fully mixing raw material components including nano-scale silicon dioxide, a shading functional component and a reinforcing fiber component, and then performing die casting molding to obtain the nano plate or the integrated shell material.
As a preferred embodiment, the thermal conductivity of the safety protection assembly is less than or equal to 0.04W/(m.K).
As a more preferable implementation mode, the heat conductivity coefficient of the nano protective shell is less than or equal to 0.04W/(m.K), and the heat conductivity coefficient of the plastic layer is less than or equal to 0.004W/(m.K).
It is understood that the thermal conductivity refers to the heat transferred through an area of 1m 2 in 1h when the temperature difference between the two side surfaces of a 1m thick material is 1K under stable heat transfer conditions. The nanometer material adopted by the nanometer protective shell has very low heat conductivity, and can effectively avoid heat transfer caused by air convection after vacuumizing, so that the heat conductivity is further greatly reduced, and the nanometer material is a heat insulation material with excellent performance when being used as a safety protective material. Meanwhile, due to the blocking effect of the material, heat can be kept not to be easily dissipated at one side of the material, so that good heat preservation and heat insulation effects are achieved.
Furthermore, the nano protective shell is used as a safety material after vacuumizing, can meet the characteristics of battery safety protection, such as insulation, heat insulation, high temperature resistance, fire resistance and the like, and can effectively prevent heat and play an insulating role under the condition that the electric core generates a large amount of heat and smoke due to severe reaction after the electric core is out of control.
For the air inlet and the air outlet of the nano-protective shell, the air inlet structure is arranged, but the plastic sealing layer arranged outside the nano-protective shell can meet the internal vacuum of the nano-protective shell in a normal state. The normal state referred to herein refers to a state in which no potential safety hazard or no thermal runaway condition of the battery core occurs in the operation, standby or charge-discharge scenarios of the battery, where both the air inlet and the air outlet are sealed by the plastic layer, so as to satisfy the internal vacuum state of the nano protection shell.
Correspondingly, when the battery core is out of control, the battery core spray valve generates a large amount of high-temperature gas, and a special exhaust channel is required to be arranged to timely exhaust the gas from the bag body, namely, the high-temperature gas breaks through the plastic sealing layer corresponding to the air inlet based on the air pressure effect, enters the vacuum inner cavity of the nanometer protective shell, breaks through the plastic sealing layer corresponding to the air outlet when the air pressure value of the inner cavity is accumulated to a certain degree, and is exhausted through the air outlet.
As a preferred embodiment, the air inlet is close to the explosion-proof valve of the battery cell, and the air outlet is close to the explosion-proof valve of the housing.
As a preferred embodiment, when the number of cells in the battery pack is greater than 1, the safety protection assembly includes a number of air inlets corresponding to the explosion-proof valves located in close proximity to the cells, in some other embodiments the number of safety protection assemblies is likewise greater than 1 to meet the exhaust requirements of the number of cells, and in some other embodiments not each of the exhaust valves of the cells has a corresponding air inlet.
A schematic of the structure of a battery pack is provided as shown in fig. 1.
In the battery pack shown in fig. 1, the battery pack comprises two electric cores, the nanometer protective shell in the safety protection component is coated on the three outer sides of the two electric cores, the nanometer protective shell forms a hollow structure, and a vacuum exhaust channel is arranged in the nanometer protective shell, when a certain electric core is in thermal runaway, two independent air inlets can respectively supply gas generated in thermal runaway to enter the exhaust channel and discharge the gas from an air outlet adjacent to an explosion-proof valve of the shell of the battery pack, so that the electrothermal separation after the thermal runaway of the whole battery pack is realized, and the safety performance of the design of the battery pack is improved.
As a preferred embodiment, a protective film is provided inside the nano-protective shell at a position corresponding to the air inlet.
It can be understood that for the plastic sealing layer, when thermal runaway occurs, the plastic sealing layer and the protective film can be broken immediately at the air inlet corresponding to the thermal runaway due to the impact of instantaneous high-temperature high-pressure gas, and meanwhile, the temperature and the pressure of the gas during reflow are obviously reduced compared with those of the gas just entering the interior of the nano protective shell, so that the plastic sealing layer and the protective film above other battery cells are not flushed away, and the influence on the other battery cells is avoided. In the safety protection component with the air inlet >1, in order to ensure that the air entering the interior of the nano protection shell is discharged at the air outlet (but not discharged at other air inlets corresponding to the lack of thermal runaway), the protection film is additionally arranged at the air inlet so as to realize that the accumulated air flow is discharged at the air outlet with the most influenced pressure difference and the weakest protection.
As a more preferred embodiment, the material of the protective film includes, but is not limited to, polyimide (PI), polyamide (PA), and the like.
In summary, the working state of the safety protection component in the battery pack according to the present invention is analyzed as follows:
first, when the environment temperature of the bag body is normal, the battery cell is free from thermal runaway, the whole bag works normally, and the whole bag design scheme can meet the power performance requirement of the whole bag.
Secondly, when the environment temperature of the bag body is normal, but the battery core is out of control, the whole bag is partially or completely powered off, and meanwhile, the safety protection assembly is used for timely exhausting, so that high-temperature and high-pressure gas is timely exhausted out of the bag, and the design requirements and national standard regulations that the whole bag is free from fire and explosion are met.
Thirdly, when the battery pack is in an external low-temperature environment, heat in the battery pack can be stored in the battery pack through the vacuum heat-preserving structure of the safety protection assembly, so that the temperature of the battery cell is kept in a proper temperature range, on one hand, the charging speed of the battery cell can be improved, on the other hand, the discharging capacity of the battery cell can be fully exerted, and the cruising capacity of electric equipment is improved.
A second aspect of the present invention is to provide a powered device.
The electric equipment comprises the battery pack. It will be appreciated that the powered device may be any device or apparatus that relies on electrical energy to perform work or operation, including but not limited to new energy automobiles, construction electrical equipment, industrial electrical appliances, household and agricultural electrical appliances, etc., and that any powered device that carries the battery pack when the battery pack is included may fall within an embodiment of the present invention, and in some alternative embodiments, the powered device may further include an electrical power source component other than the battery pack.
While the invention has been illustrated and described with respect to specific embodiments, it will be appreciated that the above embodiments are intended to be illustrative of the invention and not to be limiting thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in the embodiments described and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, and that such changes and substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the embodiments of the invention and that all such changes and modifications that fall within the spirit and scope of the invention are intended to be included in the appended claims.