How Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive Tapes Could Help Tame Battery Thermal Runaway

As electric vehicles move toward denser battery packs and faster charging rates, the risks tied to thermal runaway become harder to ignore. A fault that starts small can escalate quickly, and the industry is under pressure to find thermal management approaches that scale as easily as battery production itself.

A new whitepaper from Avery Dennison, authored by Max VanRaaphorst, makes the case for pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes as part of a broader thermal runaway prevention and mitigation strategy. Rather than treating tape as a simple assembly aid, the paper frames it as a functional layer in pack design.

The argument centers on scalability: as packs get more energy-dense and charging speeds climb, the effects of faults intensify, so materials that can be applied in high-volume manufacturing while still contributing to thermal protection become more valuable. The whitepaper examines where PSA tape fits into that equation.