Designed Fabrication of SnO/InO/C Electrochemical Sensors for Coolant Leakage Detection in Energy Storage Systems.

The liquid cooling system for lithium iron phosphate battery modules usually faces the threat of coolant leakage, which would dramatically affect the heat transfer performance, safety, and efficiency of the energy storage system. Herein, electrochemical sensing technology has been first employed to detect coolant leakage. Specifically, ethanol is selected as the additive reagent and used as the main tested substance, and the sensors indirectly identify the coolant leakage by detecting the leaked ethanol. In order to overcome the disadvantages of pure SnO for ethanol detection, including poor sensing response, low gas selectivity, and high operating temperature, microspherical-structured SnO/InO/C composite is designed and synthesized using a tin-indium metal-organic framework (SnIn-MOF) as the precursor. The fabricated sensor exhibits excellent gas-sensing performance. The response could reach 30.1 at 280 °C, and 1 mL of coolant with only 0.01% ethanol could be detected by the fabricated sensor. Moreover, the sensor also exhibits satisfactory cycling repeatability and stability. This outstanding sensing performance could be attributed to the high structural stability and synergistic effects of SnO, InO, and carbon. This work has innovatively proposed a feasible method and designed a high-quality sensor material for coolant leakage detection in an energy storage system, which is of great importance and application potential in the field of energy storage and conversion.