NLR Battery Innovation Awarded NASA’s Invention of the Year

NASA has honoured the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) and its industry partner KULR Technology Group with the 2025 Invention of the Year Award for their development of an internal short-circuit device (ISC-D) designed to improve the safety testing of lithium-ion batteries. This innovation plays a crucial role in ensuring the reliability of battery systems used in manned space missions, such as the recent Artemis II lunar journey, where lithium-ion batteries powered vital spacecraft systems. The ISC-D allows researchers to deliberately induce controlled battery failures, enabling a better understanding of how internal defects can lead to catastrophic malfunctions. The ISC-D addresses a significant challenge in battery safety research by replicating internal short circuits, a failure mode difficult to simulate with traditional external abuse tests like overheating or crushing. The device consists of three layers of metal discs insulated by a specially formulated wax, implanted between the battery’s anode and cathode. When heated to 57˚C, the wax melts, causing the metal layers to contact and trigger a short circuit in a controlled manner. This process helps researchers study thermal runaway events, where heat and gas venting from one cell can propagate to adjacent cells, potentially causing widespread battery failure. The innovation emerged from a decade-long collaboration between NASA and NLR, beginning in 2010 when NASA’s Eric Darcy joined NLR’s energy storage team to tackle the challenge of reliably inducing internal short circuits in the laboratory. The breakthrough came with the development of a wax blend that was flexible enough to be integrated into cells without premature activation, yet stable enough to trigger failures on demand. This precise control has allowed NASA to conduct rigorous testing campaigns, ensuring that battery designs for manned spacecraft can withstand internal faults without propagating thermal runaway across the battery pack. The ISC-D has become an essential tool in NASA’s battery safety protocols, enabling the design of systems that can tolerate single-cell failures without catastrophic consequences. According to Darcy, nearly all battery designs for crewed missions have been validated using ISC-D-triggered tests to prevent thermal runaway propagation, which could otherwise jeopardise entire missions and crew safety. This technology not only enhances the robustness of space-bound batteries but also has broader implications for improving lithium-ion battery safety in other high-stakes applications. Winning NASA’s Invention of the Year award underscores the importance of this innovation in advancing battery safety for extreme environments. The ISC-D’s ability to simulate realistic internal faults marks a significant step forward in understanding and mitigating battery failure mechanisms. As space missions become increasingly ambitious, the continued refinement and application of such technologies will be vital to safeguarding both equipment and human life beyond Earth.