A new approach to both high safety and high performance of lithium-ion batteries

We present a novel concept to achieve high performance and high safety simultaneously by passivating a Li-ion cell and then self-heating before use. By adding a small amount of Wallyl phosphate in conventional electrolytes, we show that resistances of the passivated cells can increase by similar to 5x, thereby ensuring high safety and thermal stability. High power before battery operation is delivered by self-heating to an elevated temperature such as 60 degrees C within tens of seconds. The present approach of building a resistive cell with highly stable materials and then delivering high power on demand through rapid thermal stimulation leads to a revolutionary route to high safety when batteries are not in use and high battery performance upon operation.