16 Nov Fike develops third-party tested solution to stop Thermal Runaway
Fike Corporation, a global manufacturer and supplier of industrial hazard protection, has announced the discovery and development of Fike BlueTM, the world’s first patented and third-party-tested solution to stop thermal runaway.
Thermal runaway is an unpredictable fire hazard experienced by lithium batteries within energy storage systems. The elevated temperatures of a malfunctioning battery cell often cause adjacent cells to also undergo thermal runaway, creating an extremely dangerous fire and explosion hazard.
According to Fike’s testing, various protection methods currently used in these applications such as water and chemical agents may indeed suppress lithium battery fires but they do little to stop the root cause of the fire itself, thermal runaway, something which we have seen as the root cause of disastrous events many times at Fire Middle East.
The battery cells within the Lithium-Ion batteries continue to produce dangerous off-gas which may burn or even reignite the explosive atmosphere.
Fike Blue has been successfully tested internally at Fike’s Remote Testing Facility in Blue Springs, Missouri and by third-party testing organizations, including CSA.
Omri Tayyara, director of mechanical engineering at Jule, observed CSA’s testing of Fike Blue, commenting:
“We were astounded by its performance,” Tayyara said. “Fike Blue cooled our internal module temperatures from several hundred degrees Celsius to under one hundred degrees and prevented cascading thermal runaway–a true engineering breakthrough. It was extremely impressive to watch, and the whole thing was done in less than 10 minutes.”