HEL has extended the features of adiabatic calorimeter Phi-Tec I and thermal screening unit TSU to enable thermal-stability testing at sub-ambient temperatures.
Mechanical changes enable the test section to be cooled simply and quickly using any available chiller, which determines the lowest operating temperature.
HEL modified its control software to allow stability testing from any initial temperature, without the need for recalibration.
Step-wise heating is performed with an assessment at the end of each step until exothermic activity is finally detected (at around +32C) and from that point the sample is allowed to self-heat adiabatically.
A battery or components of a battery could be tested in exactly the same way, which is especially suitable for testing Li-ion batteries, where growing amounts of research are now performed at low temperatures and existing thermal-screening calorimeters work only at room temperature.
