Exploring thermal hazard of lithium-ion batteries by bibliometric analysis

The safety of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), one of the most promising new energy sources, has been also attracted considerable research interest. Here, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of scientific publications from the core database of the Web of Science is carried out. To fully understand the characteristics and research trends of the thermal hazard of lithium-ion batteries, we retrieved 707 related papers from 2010 to 2021 and conducted a bibliometric mapping analysis on them. Co-occurrence analysis, cluster analysis, co-citation analysis and keyword burst analysis are performed. The results show that international thermal hazard research of lithium-ion batteries mainly focuses on safety, thermal runaway, thermal stability. In the subject distribution, Energy Fuels, Materials Science Multidisciplinary and Chemistry Physical rank the top three in terms of publications. Journal of Power Sources, Journal of Electrochemical Society and Journal of Energy Storage are the core journals for research in this field. The analysis of keyword clusters forms three main clusters, which takes safety, thermal runaway, and performance as the central words, and takes thermal diffusion and thermal stability as the main research directions. The fire simulation of LIBs, thermal failure and heat dissipation, the basic theories and research systems in the field of retardant materials represent the current frontiers of thermal hazard of LIBs studies.

Automated summary

A comprehensive bibliometric analysis of thermal hazards of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) was conducted, revealing that international research mainly focuses on safety, thermal runaway, and thermal stability. The current frontiers of thermal hazard studies include fire simulation, thermal failure and heat dissipation, and the basic theories and research systems of flame retardant materials in LIBs.