ARC Applications Areas

ARC covers a wide variety of applications to study exotherms across many industries. Application summaries are given in the Chemical / Battery / Oil sections of the website.

Since 1979 ARC technology has been commercially available and throughout that time the ARC has maintained its role as the World Benchmark Adiabatic Safety Calorimeter. THT has consistently maintained the technology with latest hardware and software developments. THT’s range of options extend functionality and address new application areas.

Reactive chemicals, monomers, resins, peroxides, batteries and explosives – all have the potential to produce heat by exothermic reactions, these are typically undesired reactions. When the heat generated is greater than the possible heat removal, the temperature will rise causing a Runaway Reaction. The result could be catastrophic with explosion, loss of property, even human injury or death.

The applications of lithium batteries extend from safety to in situ charge/discharge testing, abuse tests, heat capacity, performance and thermal management tests. The ARC was designed to simulate a runaway reaction safely in the laboratory. The ARC will quantify reactions with time - temperature - pressure release for any exothermic process and provides a realistic worst case simulation showing the likelihood of self heating and the potential for a runaway occurring. Only when tests are conducted in a truly adiabatic system (i.e the ARC), is it possible to scale up from the laboratory scale to any commercial scale.

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Applications | Chemical

In the variety of sample types that can be tested, the versatility of the ARC is unrivalled. The ARC is uniquely able to assess the Chemical Reactivity and Runaway potential of materials from low to high energies. Sample may be tested in the solid form, liquid form or slurries, pastes and mixtures – from sub gram to above 100 gram samples. Reaction of gas to liquids and solids and testing at high pressures, testing with a flow of gas is possible, with stirring and with dosing. In all tests pressure as well as temperature can be measured.

Classic Chemical applications are in areas of

Organic Chemicals and Fine Chemicals
Pharmaceuticals including intermediates and still bottoms
Peroxides and azo materials (oxidants and dyes)
Monomers, epoxies and polymeric samples
Additives and Intermediates
High explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics
Oil, fertilizers, paints

For more on specific applications please download our ES-ARC brochure

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Applications | Battery

The rapid acceptance of lithium batteries as the portable power source for very many commercial & industrial application has lead to major investigation of their safety & performance.
Hazard & thermal safety have always been key issues with lithium batteries, i.e.

Effect of heat upon the battery
Amount to heat produced by the battery.

The ARC has rapidly become the calorimeter of choice in this area due to its

Potential to incorporate batteries of large size
Acceptance with this area of safety studies
Widespread use
Ability to measure pressure
Ease of use & simplicity of data analysis
Potential to append specific options for battery testing

It is the latter area where THT have uniquely provided a full range of options to widen applications.

Battery components – developed of safer chemistries use;

Lifecycle & efficiency – charge discharge cycling
Abuse; shorting, overvoltage nail penetration
Performance; thermal management, surface area heat variation, and heat capacity determination

With not just small batteries fitting in to the standard ARC calorimeter. For Large batteries / modules / packs THT has devised

EV calorimeter
Battery performance calorimeter
Environment chamber calorimeter

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Applications | Oil: In-situ combustion of oils

THT has worked with Consultants and companies in the Oil exploration and production environment to produce unique options to facilitate studies in the area of In Situ Combustion (ISC) to allow Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

ARC studies were initially confined to high pressure static tests but the THT “flow options” allow further simulation tests where there is flow through the sample at high pressure.
The ARC is employed by several organisations worldwide for SOR studies. The data is used to

Gain information on LTO / HTO
Determine Kinetic parameters under reservoir conditions
Get data for numerical simulation
Characterise potential for ISC