When NASA launches an NG-12 rocket into space on Saturday, the company will include a special delivery: a bag to stop battery explosions.
KULR Technology Group, which began working on a safe storage solution for laptop batteries with NASA last January, will send its safe storage solution to the International Space Station.
Michael Mo, co-founder and CEO of KULR said multiple laptop batteries can be housed inside the bag for safety. While he explained battery failure rates are similar to that on Earth, if a battery enters a thermal runaway in space, the resulting high temperatures will trigger a neighboring one, creating what Mo called a “catastrophic failure.” KULR’s bags can prevent thermal runaway from spreading to neighboring bags.
“If one of the cells goes into thermal runaway, which causes fire and explosion, we keep the rest of the battery packs safe and keep the fire and explosion from propagating to the neighboring bags and neighboring batteries,” he said.
KULR’s battery bag has a cooler carbon fiber material, liquid, and a polymer enclosure, Mo said. If a thermal runaway happens, the fire carbon fiber mixes with the liquid and begins evaporating.
“The evaporation energy takes away the fire and heat and keeps the rest of the environment safe,” he continued.
Saturday’s bags are headed to space, but Mo said KULR’s bags are getting ready for use in cars, on planes or with medical equipment.
Mo said the goal for new batteries is to build the material inside battery packs — like for batteries in cars.
Next up for KULR is tackling next-generation spacesuits for NASA.
