Lithium-ion Batteries for Explosive Atmosphere

The use of electrical energy is growing constant in the world. Lithium-ion batteries have been largely used in these cases, therefore they are studied in the past years, with the aim of improve the level of safety guaranteed during their operation. Anyway, safety issues are still present, and the main topic is to avoid the rise of hazardous events, which may be associated to short circuits, over-charge/over-discharge electric currents and over-heating. These dangerous conditions may lead to exothermic chain reactions inside the storage system, which then may release toxic and/or flammable gases and finally catch fire. These problems have to be verified in several applications and in particular, when Lithium-ion battery are used in Explosive Atmosphere. The goal of this Paper is the evaluation of the most safety type of Lithium technology in order to minimize the possible ignition source in the environment with presence of Explosive Atmosphere. Moreover, the paper analyzes the ability of the Battery Manager System to remove the ignition risk residual evaluating its minimum Safety Integrity Level in order to grant a sufficient reliability.