Samsung recall: Tech solutions to enhance lithium-ion battery safety | EDN

http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4442706/Samsung-recall–Some-possible-tech-solutions-to-enhance-lithium-ion-battery-safety-

Exploding lithiun batteries are in headlines every now and then. How they can be made safer?

353 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Amionx Ready to Roll Out Its Lithium-Ion Battery Safety Tech
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/amionx-ready-to-roll-out-its-lithiumion-battery-safety-tech

    For the most part, lithium-ion batteries are extraordinarily safe. But if a battery is overcharged or develops an internal short, it can catch fire and explode. Unfortunately, this happens frequently enough that battery fires occasionally hurt people and cause major headaches for manufacturers.

    With growing demand for the high-capacity, low-cost energy storage that lithium cells provide, engineers have floated many proposals for how to make these batteries even safer. Now Amionx, a company in Carlsbad, Calif., has made an advance that it says further lowers the risk of an explosion, and which it expects to license for use in a commercial product by the end of 2019.

    Amionx says its patented battery technology, called SafeCore, makes it less likely that a battery will explode or catch fire due to thermal runaway

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    LiFePO4 versus standard lithium cells.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53n2pw5M9m4

    I was quite pleased to find that the solar street light I opened recently had a LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) cell in it. They are really well suited to that application due to their long term stability and superior number of charge/discharge cycles. The downside is that they are much bigger for a similar capacity.

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How dangerous are LiPo batteries? || Overcharge, Overdischarge, Short Circuit
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osfgkFyq7lA

    In this video I will show you how important protection circuits are for LiPo batteries and what will happen if you accidentally overcharge or overdischarge your battery or even create a short circuit.

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    54V DC Battery Short Circuit
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpQeDcEpEn0

    Old BT health and safety video regarding sealed lead acid batteries.

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    BU-808: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries
    https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

    Discover what causes Li-ion to age and what the battery user can do to prolong its life.

    Battery research is focusing on lithium chemistries so much that one could imagine that the battery future lies solely in lithium. There are good reasons to be optimistic as lithium-ion is, in many ways, superior to other chemistries. Applications are growing and are encroaching into markets that previously were solidly held by lead acid, such as standby and load leveling. Many satellites are also powered by Li-ion.

    Lithium-ion has not yet fully matured and is still improving. Notable advancements have been made in longevity and safety while the capacity is increasing incrementally. Today, Li-ion meets the expectations of most consumer devices but applications for the EV need further development before this power source will become the accepted norm.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Are over-discharged lithium cells safe? (And how to test for damage.)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRwoYJyjZNo

    Most of Poundland’s power banks in this style come completely discharged due to the higher than usual quiescent current of the circuitry. I wanted to know if that was a serious issue or not.

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How dangerous are LiPo batteries? || Overcharge, Overdischarge, Short Circuit
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osfgkFyq7lA

    In this video I will show you how important protection circuits are for LiPo batteries and what will happen if you accidentally overcharge or overdischarge your battery or even create a short circuit.

    with a great power comes a great responsibility.

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    US bars lithium-ion batteries from passenger aircraft cargo
    https://www.cnet.com/news/us-bars-lithium-ion-batteries-from-passenger-aircraft-cargo/

    Don’t worry, you can still bring your electronics on board.

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    This Solid-State Lithium Ion Battery Is Tailor-Made for Medical Devices
    UK-based Ilika has created a new miniature solid-state lithium ion battery can power innovative medtech devices.
    https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/solid-state-lithium-ion-battery-tailor-made-medical-devices/160434395260613?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=8200&elq_cid=876648

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Alana Semuels / The Atlantic:
    Amazon Marketplace lets sellers offer lithium-ion batteries and other products that can cause injuries, causing some to ask who is to blame when things go wrong

    When Your Amazon Purchase Explodes
    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/lithium-ion-batteries-amazon-are-exploding/587005/

    Shoddily made lithium-ion batteries can cause serious injury and even death. How do they keep ending up in consumers’ hands?

    Curious about what had happened, Jones went back online to try to contact the seller and alert Amazon to the problem. Scrolling through reviews, he realized other buyers were reporting fires from the same item. But Amazon seemed unconcerned, he told me: Customer-service representatives treated his report like a new one each time he called, asking for his name, the order number, and the story of what had happened over and over again. Amazon would not put him in touch with the seller and never assumed blame for the fire.

    “I was a little naive. I thought, This billion-dollar entity—they’ll at least cover my losses. What did I really expect? It is a big company, and they treated me like a big company.”

    Jones had unwittingly collided with one of e-commerce’s strangest and most vexing truths: In the massive global network of manufacturers, distributors, sellers, and resellers, it can be nearly impossible to tell who’s actually responsible for getting any given product into your living room. Even when it sets your couch on fire.

    Many shoddily made batteries are also counterfeit, meaning they bear the name of a trusted brand even if they were made by an entirely different company.

    “It’s really a perfect storm for potential hazards,” Maluf said.

    The Federal Aviation Administration has reported a few hundred incidents of smoke, fire, extreme heat, or explosions involving lithium-ion or unknown batteries in flight cargo or passenger baggage. And there were 49 recalls of high-energy-density batteries from 2012 to 2017, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, concerning more than 4 million devices, including mobile phones, scooters, power tools, and laptops.

    The link among many of these dangerous products is Amazon, where the world shops. More than half of the items sold on Amazon are listed by third-party sellers—not by Amazon itself—which makes ensuring that products are safe and authentic difficult

    In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said, “Safety is important to Amazon and we want customers to shop with confidence on our stores. Third-party sellers are required to comply with all relevant laws and regulations when listing items for sale in our stores. When sellers don’t comply with our terms, we work quickly to take action on behalf of customers.”

    Insurance companies have even started to sue both Amazon and battery makers because they say they’ve had to pay out many claims over lithium-ion-battery explosions.

    Even as the fires keep happening, battery manufacturers, Amazon, and consumers are all blaming one another. But so far, courts have pinned the blame neither on Amazon nor on the battery manufacturers. This is because websites such as Amazon can argue in court that they are merely a platform that allows buyers and sellers to connect. Unlike, say, Macy’s, which buys products wholesale and resells them to consumers, Amazon often doesn’t own or even touch the products bought and sold on its site

    And it’s easy for third-party retailers to disappear after selling a defective or dangerous product, even if they pop up a few weeks later under a different name and address, again selling dangerous products.

    Battery makers, meanwhile, place the blame on consumers, for buying the things in the first place.

    He argues that consumers simply should not be handling many types of lithium-ion batteries—particularly the 18650, which is slightly larger than a AA battery and is one of the most commonly problematic lithium-ion batteries—themselves. “If someone is using a lithium-ion battery for something other than which it was designed,” he said, “that’s out of the control of manufacturers.” Consumers simply should not be able to walk into a retail store and find a 18650 battery, Kerchner told me. But Bentley, the attorney, told me his customers have bought individual lithium-ion batteries from brick-and-mortar stores, websites, and other people.

    Kerchner suggested that the real enemy is e-cigarette manufacturers, which have designed devices around 18650 cells.

    But can consumers really be blamed for buying readily available batteries that extend the life of their products? Kyle Wiens, a co-founder of iFixit, which provides tips on how to repair devices, said the answer is no. “It’s so condescending to put the blame on the user and say, ‘We made this thing and then they used it wrong, and that’s why they got hurt,’” he told me.

    The problem, Wiens said, is that it’s incredibly easy to buy poorly made batteries and have absolutely no idea that they may be dangerous. This is partly because you can buy almost anything on Amazon, including counterfeit and dangerous goods.

    Amazon also does not make it easy for customers to report when they receive a product that shouldn’t be available on the site—whether because it’s banned, like the 18650, or because it’s counterfeit.

    But it also warned, in its most recent annual report, that sales of counterfeits present a risk to its business, because it reimburses buyers in certain situations. If counterfeit or stolen goods are sold on its site, Amazon said, the company could face civil or criminal liability. This is the first time Amazon has listed the sales of counterfeits as a risk in SEC filings.

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Daily shredding machine destroy:Lithium battery or Bomb?Car shock absorber/Army bed.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eVmZhBLt-k

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Are Lithium Batteries Dangerous? Is it safe to drive Tesla Car?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUgbmCSmSNY

    Smartphone Battery Explosion? We will show you how it’s like! Three Brands
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-a405s1eio

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    TOTAL teardown of a lithium phone battery.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI1eRy0uBI8

    So this started off as just trying to see how the circuitry was mounted in a lithium cell. I should really have discharged it first as it got a bit freaky at times.
    But this is a total teardown. Not just cracking out the circuit board, but the whole case and then the guts of the cell too

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Here’s Where the Juice That Powers Batteries Comes From
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50rXYrFCQMw

    Ashlee Vance explores lithium mining in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Lithium Batteries Dropped in Water
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTJh_bzI0QQ

    Today we’re trying something a little different. We’re going to show you what happens when you place lithium in water all in one continuous take!

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    DIY: How to revive a dead 18650 (or any) Li-ion battery cell
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbEfhPbqTDE

    Today I will show you how to revive a dead 18650 Li-ion cell that’s being refused by the chargers. This method will work with any Li-ion battery, not just the 18650 cells.

    Note: this is not a permanent way to charge an 18650 cell. The point of this method is just to bring up the voltage of the dead cell to a point that is enough for a real 18650 charger to accept it and charge it properly. When a Li-ion battery does not have high enough voltage, the charger would not charge it.

    Also: don’t overdischarge a Li-ion cells down to below 3V especially below the threshold recognized by the charger. Otherwise, it will not live long. The “Goldilocks” zone for a long and healthy Li-ion cell life is between 30% and 90% charge. Too much charge or discharge would be bad for the cell.

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Should you be worried about exploding Lithium Ion batteries?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zce3bFKnkvU

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Dangerous USB-powered 18650 Li-Ion charger
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM-yZ0EDMsU

    Today, let’s take a look at a cheap charger for 18650 Li-Ion cells. It’s powered from a USB port, not mains, so it should be safe… or shouldn’t it? Watch this video!

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    No room to be complacent when playing with Lithium
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4uypcL2yKM

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Smartphone Battery Explosion? We will show you how it’s like! Three Brands
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-a405s1eio

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Litium, tuo maaginen 10 grammaa, jota ilman et tule toimeen
    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9617107

    Ilman litiumia kännykkä ei soi eikä sähköauto hurise. Suomalaiset istuvat Euroopan suurimman esiintymän päällä.

    Reply
  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Sähköauton akku on epäekologinen ja siksi nyt on kehitteillä ilmastoystävällisempi vaihtoehto, suola-akku, joka saattaa olla suuri pelastajamme
    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10853858

    Reply
  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/lithium-batteries-dirty-secret-manufacturing-them-leaves-massive-carbon

    Once in operation, electric cars certainly reduce your carbon footprint, but making the lithium-ion batteries could emit 74% more CO2 than for conventional cars.

    Reply
  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Many argue that #battery technology has an inherent growth rate in key metrics analogous to #MooresLaw. But can we expect this to continue? #lithiumion #chemistry #electricvehicles #electronics https://buff.ly/2ZPPvY5

    https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-cafe/4462251/Do-lithium-ion-batteries-follow-Moore-s-Law-?utm_content=buffer5bd51&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    Reply
  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nicola Davis / The Guardian:
    Nobel prize in chemistry awarded to three scientists for their work in developing lithium-ion batteries, which sparked the portable technology revolution — John B Goodenough, M Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino honoured for development that sparked portable technology revolution

    Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for work on lithium-ion batteries
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/09/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-awarded-for-work-on-lithium-ion-batteries

    John B Goodenough, M Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino honoured for sparking a portable technology revolution

    Reply
  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Upcycle an old cell phone battery into a usable power source for your next project.

    Turn Used Phone Batteries From E-Waste Into E-Treasure
    https://www.hackster.io/news/turn-used-phone-batteries-from-e-waste-into-e-treasure-ab6e0f2c53f2

    This hacker shows how to upcycle an old cell phone battery into a usable power source for your next project.

    Reply
  27. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Shorting out a fully charged cheap lithium jump starter. (It didn’t end well.)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tGK1nqXr28

    Playing with lithium batteries: for when playing with fire just isn’t exciting enough anymore…

    “What could possibly go wrong?”
    “What’s the worst that could happen?”
    “I probably shouldn’t do this”
    Big like for Big Clive :)

    Reply
  28. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A Lithium-Ion Battery That You Can Scrunch
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/batteries-storage/a-lithiumion-battery-that-bends

    “What we’re doing at Jenax is putting batteries into locations where they couldn’t be before,” says Shin. Her firm demonstrated some of those new possibilities last week at CES 2020 in Las Vegas.

    “That’s when you need very thin, flexible batteries.”

    Apart from Jenax, companies including Panasonic, Samsung, and STMicroelectronics are working to develop flexible batteries of their own. But Jenax claims to have “a higher degree of flexibility” compared with its competitors.

    J.Flex can be as thin as 0.5 millimeters (suitable for sensors), and as tiny as 20 by 20 millimeters (mm) or as large as 200 by 200 mm. Its operating voltage is between 3 and 4.25 volts. Depending on the size, battery capacity varies from 10 milliampere-hours to 5 ampere-hours

    Reply
  29. Tomi Engdahl says:

    OPERATIIVINEN TOIMINTA 28.6.2019 Facebook (747)
    Sähköauto syttyi kolmesti – akkupalo on arvaamaton ja vaikea sammuttaa
    https://pelastustieto.fi/pelastustoiminta/operatiivinen-toiminta/sahkoauto-syttyi-kolmesti-akkupalo-on-arvaamaton-ja-vaikea-sammuttaa/

    Reply
  30. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Calorimeter Deliberately Drives Li-Ion Cells into Thermal Runaway and Explosion
    A sophisticated calorimeter developed by NASA researchers provides detailed data on thermal runaway and even explosion of lithium-based battery cells under internal fault conditions.
    https://www.electronicdesign.com/power-management/power-protection/article/21121245/calorimeter-deliberately-drives-liion-cells-into-thermal-runaway-and-explosion?utm_source=EG+ED+Analog+%26+Power+Source&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200117063&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R

    Reply
  31. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Näin sammuu viheliäinen sähköauton tulipalo – Pumppujen tuotto on 1 000 litraa minuutissa
    https://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/uutiset/nain-sammuu-viheliainen-sahkoauton-tulipalo-pumppujen-tuotto-on-1000-litraa-minuutissa/60cfd9f2-47b6-4fea-a606-b16118203824

    Tanskalaiset hukuttavat palavan sähköauton konttiin

    Reply
  32. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Oliver Mattos Offers a Simple Circuit for Lithium Battery Control in Arduino and Other Projects
    https://www.hackster.io/news/oliver-mattos-offers-a-simple-circuit-for-lithium-battery-control-in-arduino-and-other-projects-1cd1e6839fdd

    Driving a particular pin high allows the DW01, usually used simply to protect the battery, to act as a switch for battery-powered projects

    Reply
  33. Tomi Engdahl says:

    New Solution to Keep Lithium Batteries from Catching Fire
    A novel separator developed at UC San Diego can withstand damage from dendrite puncture and help prevent catastrophic failure.
    https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/new-solution-keep-lithium-batteries-catching-fire/90020049462736?ADTRK=InformaMarkets&elq_mid=13014&elq_cid=876648

    One of the big challenges that researchers have tried to solve regarding lithium-based batteries is their tendency to degrade or fail in a way that causes them to catch fire or explode. Now nanoengineers from the University of California (UC) San Diego have devised a new safety feature that could prevent lithium-metal batteries from this disastrous scenario in case of an internal short circuit.

    “We’re not trying to stop battery failure from happening,” he said in a press statement. “We’re making it much safer so that when it does fail, the battery doesn’t catastrophically catch on fire or explode.”

    Dendrite Dilemma

    It’s by now well known that lithium metal batteries fail because of the growth of needle-like structures called dendrites on the anode after many cycles of charging. Many researchers have been studying the growth and evolution of these dendrites in batteries to approach resolving the problem in this way.

    The UC San Diego team took a slightly different tack. Researchers observed how, over time, the dendrites can grow so long that they pierce the separator and create a bridge between the anode and cathode, which causes the short circuit. If this scenario happens, then the flow of electrons between the anode and cathode is disrupted, causing the battery to overheat and stop working.

    To solve this problem, researchers developed a separator that essentially can soften the blow when a dendrite punctures it.

    Reply
  34. Tomi Engdahl says:

    this is what thermal runaway on Tesla 18650 cells look like,

    https://youtu.be/WdDi1haA71Q

    Reply

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