Photo credit : Chemistry of Materials and Energy Laboratory, Collège de France/Benjamin Campech, RS2E.
Today, batteries are used in a wide range of applications (portable devices, electric mobility, renewable energy storage, etc.). In today's society, where energy management is becoming an essential issue, this technology is more important than ever. Researchers and manufacturers are seeking to ensure the safety and reliability of these storage systems by developing tools that enable them to monitor the evolution of batteries from the inside. These advances pave the way for the intelligent batteries of the future. An international team (Collège de France, CNRS [1], Hong Kong Polytechnic University, MIT, Dalhousie University) has adopted a trans-disciplinary approach that has yet to be fully explored: incorporating optical fibers equipped with Bragg sensors into 18650 cells [2] [3].
The innovation here lies in exploiting the optical signals obtained to decode the thermal and chemical events taking place within the battery (i.e. heat generation and structural transformations).
In an article published in the journal Nature Energy, the researchers show that advanced analysis of the information captured (wavelength shifts) by the fibers provides real-time, on-demand information on the batteries' state of health.
