To solve the misfire problem of lithium-ion batteries in storage and transportation, a method of using cryogenic control to prevent thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries is proposed, and a serial of tests of thermal runaway of ternary lithium-ion batteries under the effect of cryogenic cooling are carried out. The results show that cryogenic cooling can weaken the energy release of a lithium-ion battery after thermal runaway by reducing its internal reaction activity and then blocking the chain propagation of thermal runaway between battery packs. The lower the temperature of a lithium-ion battery, the more difficult it is for the battery to develop thermal runaway; when the temperature drops to −20 °C, thermal runaway propagation does not occur. The highest CO concentration and mass loss in the test chamber were reduced by 83.1% and 75.9%, respectively, compared with the normal temperature group. When the temperature dropped below −30 °C, the battery that was directly punctured did not develop thermal runaway. This discovery can be used in the transportation and storage of lithium batteries.

A growing number of fires and explosions in energy storage plants have been triggered by the thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries. Owing to the complex physicochemical properties of these batteries, their fire safety issues remain unresolved and constitute a major obstacle to the large-scale deployment of energy storage systems. Compared with conventional extinguishing media, liquid nitrogen (LN₂) offers a dual suppression mechanism, i.e., rapid endothermic vaporization and oxygen displacement by inert nitrogen gas, making it highly suitable for lithium-ion battery fire control. However, the key operational parameters governing its suppression efficiency remain unclear, leading to excessive or insufficient LN₂ use in practice. This study established a dedicated experimental platform and designed 10 experimental conditions, each repeated three times, to investigate the propagation of thermal runaway between adjacent batteries and to quantify the suppression performance of LN₂ under varying nozzle diameters and injection strategies. Results demonstrate that under identical injection pressures, larger nozzle diameters significantly outperform smaller ones in cooling and suppression efficiency. The optimal nozzle diameter was found to be 14 mm, achieving a cooling efficiency of 40%. Furthermore, intermittent LN₂ injection of equal total mass outperformed continuous injection, with a 45 s intermittent duration achieving a cooling efficiency of 63%, 23% higher than continuous injection. These findings provide quantitative guidance for the design of LN₂-based suppression systems in large-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage modules.