Flame retardants and EV battery safety
Vincenza Morone, Italmatch (pinfa member) explains how flame retardants and test standards ensure electric vehicles safety. Flame retardants can reduce the fire risks resulting from battery thermal runaway, which can occur in case of battery damage (accidents), ageing, extreme conditions or mechanical damage. The UL 2596 full-scale battery pack test replicates the stresses to which structures can be exposed in case of thermal runaway, including temperature, pressure and abrasion. The small-scale “torch and grit” test enables pre-testing of a large number of materials samples, comparing their behaviour under a sequence of flame and grit blast until rupture. Italmatch offer a range of phosphorus and synergist based PIN flame retardants which can pass these tests and ensure fire resistant EV battery packs, by generating a compact and hard char layer in case of fire in performance polymers such as PA, ABS, HIPS and PBT.
“Electric Vehicles: flame retardants and UL 2596 test”, Italmatch, 16th July 2024 https://www.italmatch.com/magazine/electric-vehicles-flame-retardants-and-ul-2596-test/
