
Battery with inbuilt 'fire extinguisher' developed - happy-go-lucky
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38637357
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patcheudor
The reason for recent battery issues have been primarily because manufacturers
are pushing for tighter tolerances to make more energy dense batteries and
smaller safety spaces in battery compartments. At the point they build in a
fire extinguisher, why not go back to roomier batteries and compartments? Does
this built in fire extinguisher impact the battery size and tolerances or does
it replace existing materials? It was disappointing to not see that covered in
the article.

~~~
maxerickson
If my skimming of the journal article
([http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601978.full](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601978.full)
) is accurate, they really only built a prototype.

So it's more of a demonstration that the flame retardant can be placed in a
battery separated from the electrolyte by a heat activated membrane than it is
a fully engineered end user battery.

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dzhiurgis
I was wondering whether it would make sense to put some very smelly gas, just
like you do with bottled gas.

Battery leaks would be then easily detectable by human nose.

~~~
cmdrfred
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanethiol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanethiol)

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Globz
If only they could do this for 18650 batteries which goes into vaping device
that would be great, so many careless users blow up their face while vaping
because they have no knowledge of battery safety or ohm law when building
their coils.

~~~
Roedou
I don't know anything about the vaping space, but have seen some of those
horror headlines of them exploding in people's pockets.

Why do people have to build their own coils? Do they have to do some DIY, or
can you just buy a vaper off the shelf?

I don't need to know Ohm's Law to use my cellphone, etc. Why for this product
class?

~~~
EvilTerran
People don't have to build their own coils - there's plenty of devices on the
market that take factory-produced cartridges with a coil & wick all set up for
you, you just swap out the cartridge when it gets old. Most casual "vapers"
just use those, for convenience as much as for safety.

But building coils is a hobby in its own right - there's lots of different
variables you can tinker with (coil diameter, number of turns, wire gauge,
wire material, wick material, wicking style, multiple coils in parallel, ...)
and get slightly different results. It's fun to experiment, and there's a
sense of achievement when you get a complicated build working just right. It
appeals in the same way that overclocking your computer does, for example, or
tuning your car/bike engine.

Also, all those cartridges will eventually be discontinued as the manufacturer
moves on to new devices - but you can keep using a rebuildable device as long
as you can get suitable resistance wire (Kanthal A1, Nichrome, or a certain
grade of stainless steel) and wick (organic cotton, cellulose fibre, or silica
yarn). And those raw materials cost basically nothing per coil, compared to a
few dollars for each of those cartridges.

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partycoder
I have had to dispose bulged batteries, which are classified as household
hazardous material. Craigslist forbids doing business involving such materials
so I could not hire someone to do a dump run. Had to go all the way to a dump
transfer station myself.

Lithium ion or lithium polymer batteries can become dangerous through
overcharging and overdischarging, manufacturing defects, damage, etc.

It is a good idea to take a look at it once in a while and if it is bulged,
dont use it.

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tritosomal
I'd be inclined to skip this sort of thing on handheld-scale batteries.

It only makes sense when a large battery serves as a power store for something
like a vehicle, where a fire extinguisher stands between a cabin full of
concussions and a cabin full of charred corpses.

Cell phones are sold to us as disposable trash, that corporations and
governments use to eavesdrop on our lives. We're trained to sneer at a cell
phone more than a year old.

From Wikipedia:

    
    
      However, an increasing number of studies 
      have linked exposure to TPP with reproductive 
      and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, 
      metabolic disruption, endocrine effects, and 
      genotoxicity. TPP has also been found to 
      induce significant estrogenic activity
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triphenyl_phosphate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triphenyl_phosphate)

There aren't a lot of teeth to regulations for responsible battery disposal.
Even in countries with healthy recycling programs. If I threw all my old cell
phone batteries into landfill today, I could safely gamble with any punishment
risked.

Now add unspent fire suppressant to the list of things that go in the garbage
with last year's cell phone?

~~~
philipkglass
Halogenated fire retardants are some of the worst persistent organic
pollutants, so like you I looked up triphenyl phosphate to see if it's likely
to become a problem in its own right. It looks pretty safe to me when you
consider all factors.

In active batteries triphenyl phosphate remains separated from humans. In
proper recycling processes it remains separated from humans. In improperly
landfilled batteries it can escape containment, _but_ it has negligible vapor
pressure at ambient temperatures so it won't spread by air. It rapidly
biodegrades in the presence of water so it won't lead to human exposure
through waterways or groundwater plumes if a landfill leaks.

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synicalx
I could understand this for larger batteries, I'd hate to see the damage a
Powerwall or something similar could do when someone lets the work experience
kid do QA for a few hours.

~~~
NickM
See for yourself: [https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-
saf...](https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/)

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nom
"If a lithium-ion battery cell charges too quickly or a tiny manufacturing
error slips through the net it can result in a short circuit - which can lead
to fire."

How about solving the obvious problems?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
So, guarantee 100% reliability forever? Sounds obvious, but is it easy, or
even possible?

Better to stop the reaction in its tracks and allow the engineers to see where
things go wrong than to assume the battery will always work. I'm sure the
engineers behind the Boeing 787 and the Galaxy Note 7 also believed with
confidence that their batteries would be fine.

