Waters Corporation has launched Waters TA Instruments Coin Cell Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC), designed to transform battery safety testing. Purpose-built for battery scientists, the Coin Cell DSC enables direct testing of fully assembled coin cells, eliminating time-intensive preparation steps while delivering faster, more descriptive safety and performance insights.

The Coin Cell DSC is the only commercially available DSC1 that provides multidimensional data capture and enables researchers to collect whole-cell thermal data while simultaneously measuring evolved gas and electrochemical performance. By incorporating voltage monitoring and charge/discharge capability, researchers can directly correlate thermal and electrochemical behavior enabling earlier insights into thermal runaway and battery failure. It can also be coupled with MS, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), or Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) to enable direct analysis of off-gas composition.

Yu Cheng, Vice President, Research and Development and Product Solutions, Materials Sciences, Waters Corporation, said, “The Coin Cell DSC represents a significant advancement in battery thermal analysis. Simultaneously capturing thermal, evolved gas, and electrochemical data is not only faster, but also correlates data from the same sample for more exacting insights earlier in development. With its broad temperature range and streamlined workflows, the system is designed to reduce experimental complexity while outperforming current approaches."

The Coin Cell DSC introduces a unique capsule design that eliminates the highly time-consuming need for cell teardown, reducing the average sample preparation time by more than 90 percent. This approach preserves sample integrity while significantly accelerating data generation.

The new system redefines thermal analysis by integrating advanced temperature performance, efficient workflows, and multidimensional data capture into a single platform. With an industry-leading –80 °C to 600 °C range, the Coin Cell DSC enables comprehensive analysis of low- and high-temperature behavior, expanding future applications in development and QA/QC.

Shirley Meng, Professor, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago and Director, Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), said, "The battery industry has long needed a solution that bridges the gap between materials thermal analysis and full-cell DSC testing. This technology enables the evaluation of full-cell thermal stability by incorporating gas analysis and electrochemical data—capabilities that are essential for advancing early-stage battery safety research."

Traditional battery safety testing methods, such as Accelerating Rate Calorimetry (ARC), are deployed during late-stage research and development (R&D) and require large cell formats, specialised facilities, and long experiment times. In contrast, the Coin Cell DSC enables direct evaluation of intact coin cells earlier and faster, streamlining development and reducing risk.

The Waters TA Instruments Coin Cell DSC is available for order now, with shipments expected to begin in August 2026.