Battery internal short circuit trigger and improved performance method

Description (excerpt)

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a divisional application of U.S. Pat. No. 12,424,669, issued on Sep. 23, 2025, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/694,672, filed on Jul. 6, 2019. The provisional application and all other publications and patent documents referred to throughout this nonprovisional application are incorporated herein by reference. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure is generally related to thermal treatment of batteries. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART Lithium-based, rechargeable batteries have enjoyed considerable commercial success since their introduction for rechargeable, portable applications that require a combination of high energy density, light weight, and rapid charging capability. The continuously rising demands for mobile energy storage necessitate improvements in energy density, cost-effectiveness, and recharge times while still maintaining safe and durable, long-term cycling characteristics. Despite its commercial success to date, replacing graphite with lithium metal in the anode of Li + -ion batteries can further enable promising new battery chemistries as well as new applications. Lithium metal anodes in rechargeable batteries promise high specific capacity (3860 mAh g −1 ), light weight, and the lowest electrochemical potential (−3.04 V vs. SHE) (1, 2), but are currently hindered by recharge capability. In the ideal case for a rechargeable battery with a lithium metal anode, Li would be plated at the cell anode in densely-packed, uniform deposits that could be easily stripped, with complete reversibility, for re-intercalation into the cell cathode. Plating and stripping lithium with low overpotentials minimizes energy efficiency losses and diffusion resistances. The latter is critical because it has implications for the future stability of the cell; plating lithium with high overpotentials evinces that Li + -ion diffusion is poor, which will lead to unwanted, high-aspect ratio Li plating morphologies (3). Alternatively, low overpotentials are suggestive of facile Lit-ion diffusion that results in compact, planar lithium plating morphologies that are less susceptible to detrimental reactions with the electrolyte. Though Li metal promises an order of magnitude capacity enhancement over current state-of-the-art graphite at the negative electrode, deployment will require overcoming significant challenges. The practically observed scenario for lithium plating and stripping does not reproducibly match the ideal case described above. Due to its high reactivity, lithium metal is unstable in the electrolyte, inevitably forming a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) through a chemical reaction that passivates the metal surface at the expense of electrolyte salt and the lithium metal anode itself (4). Additionally, lithium plating deposits are typically porous (5-8), causing drastic volumetric expansion and contraction during plating and stripping. The porosity of these deposits increases surface area, which predisposes the electrodes to continual, detrimental, electrode-electrolyte reactions (9). This irreversibly consumes electrodes and electrolyte, reducing capacity and forming undesirable surface deposits of electrochemically inactive lithium at the electrode-electrolyte interface that hinder charge transfer (10, 11). Another notorious challenge is that lithium has a propensity to electrodeposit in high-aspect ratio morphologies, such as dendrites, during repeated plating/stripping, which have the potential to cause internal short circuits and initiate the thermal runaway reaction (12). A number of promising strategies have been presented for alleviating these effects and bringing safe, rechargeable, lithium metal batteries closer to reality. One approach involves using three-dimensional and conductive host materials like carbon, nickel, or other materials that reduce volumetric fluctuations, mechanically stabilize SEI formations, and limit Li reactions with the electrolyte (5, 13-18). Electrode-electrolyte reactions have been reduced by applying chemically-stable coatings prior to cycling to form an “artificial” SEI, protecting lithium metal from corrosion by the electrolyte and potentially suppressing dendrite growth (19, 20). Coatings have also been engineered to homogenize electronic conductivity throughout the electrode for more uniform lithium plating (21). Another effective strategy for stabilizing lithium metal batteries involves electrolyte modifications that entail selections for additives, solvents, or salt concentrations. The motivation for these efforts can be to tune Li+-ion flux or the metal interactions with the electrolyte, and can also include promoting more benign plating morphologies or increasing plating deposit densities (12, 22-24). Separator polymers have also been crosslinked with ceramics in an attempt to mechanically stifle dendrite growth (25). Materials design and cell component selection has dominated efforts in the literature to harness lithium metal for next-generation batteries. Separate from these materials approaches are operational protocols for safe and reproducible long-term cycling. One example of this is pulse charging, which homogenizes the ion concentration gradients between stripping and plating el