21st April Symposium – BFA Fire Protection Forum Austria
On Thursday, 17 September 2020, AccuPower business owner Ing. Issam Al-Abassy participated together with AccuPower Hazardous Goods & Fire Protection Officer David Gradwohl at the 21st April Symposium 2020 of the BFA Fire Protection Forum Austria as a speaker of the main event on the topic “Fire and Disaster Protection in the New Millennium”.
For the 21st time, the April Symposium, which had to be postponed to September due to Corona, was held this year at Novapark in Graz. This is an innovative event that brings together recognised experts from Austria and Germany to take a closer look at and discuss future fire protection in their home country, taking into account current developments in the European Union.
The symposium was held for the 21st time in April.
Ing. Issam Al-Abassy gave a lecture on the subject of “Lithium-ion batteries on the test bench”. The contents of the lecture included effective protective measures and damage prevention as well as a reflection on our fire protection exercise during the controlled fire tests with our lithium safe in cooperation with the Brandschutzforum Austria.
Summary of the lecture“Lithium-ion batteries on the test bench – Effective protective measures and damage prevention – Where do we go from here? – Fire tests”:
Lithium-ion batteries are now installed in devices by the millions because of their high energy density. They are small, light and create 3 to 4 times the amount of energy of previous battery systems. However, the energy density also creates a lot of dangers. It is therefore important to know the potential sources of danger and to reduce them to a minimum. Preventive fire protection measures should be taken into account as early as the development stage. At AccuPower, many years of experience and know-how in this area are incorporated into every project.
Many potential causes of fire in lithium-ion batteries can be reduced to a tolerable level through simple measures. This includes, for example, the correct design of the battery pack and the use of protective electronics, the trained transport of hazardous materials but also correct storage and handling.
With the ever-increasing increase in e-mobility the impact of the increasing amount of batteries of different chemical systems on the environment is also becoming an increasingly important issue.
In the meantime, there are suitable recycling processes through which batteries and rechargeable batteries can be professionally recycled and which contribute to reducing the burden on the environment.
The success of the recycling systems, however, depends heavily on consumer awareness and correct waste separation.
Despite this, we are still facing a major challenge, as in e-mobility rechargeable batteries that only have 60-70% of their original capacity are usually considered to be obsolete. Such batteries can still be used efficiently for 5 to 8 years as “2nd life storage” in other areas, e.g. in stationary systems or photovoltaic systems. This in turn relieves the environment, as no production of new batteries is necessary for these areas.
In conclusion, Ing- Al-Abassy reported on the increased fire protection measures that AccuPower had carried out together with theFire Protection Forum Austria at the training grounds of the Styrian Fire Brigade and Civil Defence School in Lebring – St. Margarethen. In addition to AccuPower employees, Dr Otto Widetscheck, ABI Ernst Ulz and renowned experts also took part.
In the course of this exercise, an AccuPower lithium safe was filled with lithium-ion batteries with a total capacity of 7,250 Wh and set on fire in a controlled manner. The knowledge gained from this exercise will be incorporated into the further development of the AccuPower Lithium Safe.
