What makes a phone battery explode?
We’re all a little curious about why a battery might explode, so let’s talk about it.
Exploding battery talk is something you can’t escape right now, thanks to a problem with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. It’s good discussion to have: the more people talk about it, the less likely it is for a child to get hurt from a battery failure. As much as we hate to see a product we like experience safety issues, we hate seeing people get hurt far more.
But the Note 7 isn’t the first phone to ever go through battery problems, and it won’t be the last. There will always be isolated incidents of batteries failing as long as we use phones with lithium-ion cells, and the Note 7 isn’t the first phone whose battery needed a widespread recall because something is wrong under the hood — as long-time Nokia fans know too well. It happens. It’s never a good thing, but it’s a thing. Let’s talk about why it can happen.
How your phone battery works
The first thing we need to understand is how exactly the lithium-ion battery in your phone works. The name gives us a hint — electricity is carried from one electrode to another using charged lithium ions.
Electricity meets chemistry meets metallurgy — that’s what makes a battery possible.
Lithium-ion batteries store, transfer and release energy because of natural chemical reactions. The battery has two electrodes — an anode and a cathode. The cathode is connected to the positive (+) connection on the battery and holds positively charged ions, and the anode is connected to the negative (-) connection and holds (you guessed it) negatively charged ions.
Between the two electrodes is what’s called an electrolyte. The electrolyte in a lithium battery is (usually) an organic solvent paste that has a very large number of metallic salts (in most cases, that metal is lithium) as part of its makeup. This makes it electrically conductive — electricity can pass through it. The anode and the cathode are in the electrolyte and separated by a physical barrier so they can’t touch.
When you discharge the battery (when you’re using your phone and not charging it) the cathode pushes its positively charged ions away and the negatively charged anode attracts them. Electricity flows out from the anode, through your device, then back to the cathode. Yes, electricity travels through a loop and isn’t “used up” by the thing being powered. When you charge your phone, the reverse happens and ions travel from the cathode through the electrolyte to the anode.
Lithium is the perfect element for rechargeable batteries: It’s lightweight, easy to recharge and holds a charge for a long time.
When these ions come in contact with the charged atoms in an electrode, an electrochemical reaction called oxidation-reduction (redox) frees the charged electrons to travel out through the battery contacts, which are connected to the electrodes. This continues to charge the lithium ions in the electrolyte until there aren’t enough left that can hold a positive charge that’s strong enough to move through the electrolyte paste, and your battery will no longer charge.
Lithium is the lightest metal — number three on the periodic table. It’s also very excitable, making it easy to create a powerful chemical reaction. This makes it a near-perfect metal to use in a portable rechargeable battery. It’s lightweight, easy to recharge and continues to hold a charge for a long time.
What can make a battery explode?
For starters, let’s define what explode means in this case. The electrolyte paste inside a lithium-ion battery is extremely volatile. It can (and will) react violently to other metals, and has a very low (180-degrees Celsius) melting point. Inside a sealed battery casing, the pressure generated can build up until the casing is ruptured, then rapidly escape. The pressure carries out extremely hot electrolyte fluids which can cause other things to catch fire. Some lithium batteries are vented with an escape hole so they won’t rupture under pressure. When the battery casing ruptures and superheated liquid filled with melted metals is expelled under pressure, it causes an explosion.
There are two easy ways to make a lithium battery explode — heat, and physical damage. Let’s look at both.
Overheating and overcharging
This is the most common reason a battery fails. Something goes wrong in the charging circuit and the input power continues to drive the chemical reaction. One place in the battery will eventually get too hot and, since it is still being charged, it can’t cool down, causing what’s known as thermal runaway.
In this case, the hot portion starts to generate its own heat, which makes other areas in the electrolyte overheat, and they cause more spots in the battery to overheat. The heat expands the electrolyte and creates steam, building pressure until the battery casing splits and forces out all the pressure and some very hot, very sticky (and very flammable once exposed to the air) gooey liquid.
A thermal runaway can happen fast enough that you don’t even feel the heat before the battery fails.
When such a rupture happens, it can cause physical damage to the things that are close to it — when holding a phone, circuit boards and glass or plastic. These materials can also catch fire from the heat, which in turn makes the escaped electrolyte ignite and act like napalm — fire that sticks to things until it burns through them or burns itself out.
The thermal runaway process can happen very quickly, and things can go from “normal” to catastrophic failure inside the battery before the heat is even transferred through your phone to your hands. Thankfully, the hundreds of millions of lithium batteries produced every year have an extremely low (almost statistically insignificant) failure rate due to thermal runaway, partially because of safety measures (subscription required) like non-flammable additives to the electrolyte and coatings.
When your phone tells you that it’s too hot and won’t charge or run at full speed, it needs to cool down so thermal runaway doesn’t happen. Listen to the little pop-up and let it cool.
Mechanical damage
Lithium batteries are designed to be lightweight, deliver high output, and be easy to charge. This means that the outside shell and the barrier(s) separating the electrodes are very thin and light, with most of the weight coming from the parts that can actually power your phone.
Because the partitions and case are thin, they’re fairly easy to puncture or tear. If the structure of the battery itself is damaged in a way that makes the electrodes touch, a short circuit will happen. The instant electrical discharge is explosive, which can (and will) heat the electrolyte and create pressure to push it out through any ruptures in the battery case. It’s hot, it’s flammable and it’s in contact with a spark. That’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s hot, it’s flammable and it’s in contact with a spark. That’s a recipe for disaster.
A thin casing is also a safety precaution, though it sounds crazy. Thinner metal is easier to rupture, so less pressure can generate inside a sealed case — essentially creating a vent hole. Pushing out flammable hot liquid under pressure isn’t a good thing. Letting more pressure build until it ruptures a thicker case is worse.
Other metals coming in contact with the electrolyte paste can also create a spark that leads to failure. I’ll let you search YouTube yourself to see incredibly silly people puncturing phone batteries to make them explode. The reaction to foreign metal does the same thing as a short, but on a smaller scale.
What about the Note 7?
Image credit reddit user crushader
For starters, nobody but Samsung knows why batteries in some Note 7s have exploded. They sent out a short statement through their U.K, division that doesn’t really make sense. The wording “the anode-to-cathode came into contact” sounds like they are describing a short, but as written it means nothing. I won’t try to interpret something that isn’t clear in a case like this. But I can say what I think as an armchair quarterback who has never seen a Note 7 explode or inspected one that has exploded on his own, a situation where the anode shorts to the cathode does make the most sense.
Because people have reported the Note 7 battery failing without it being plugged in and large portions of the phones we see in pictures are not burned, I’m going to assume that it’s not a thermal runaway situation, even though Health Canada expicitly says the lone failure in Canada was from overheating,
Anyone outside of Samsung can only make an educated guess about what’s happening.
A thermal runaway situation isn’t as “instant” as a direct short, and the excited electrolyte solution would take a longer time to exit a burst battery then continue after an explosion ruptured the case. More than just a portion of the phone would be burned, as well as other objects in the immediate area. A heat explosion also would cause the battery to swell before the flexible casing would rupture, and with no room for expansion, the swollen battery would crack the outer shell of the phone. There are videos on YouTube that show how this happens, and here is a great (albeit old) example of someone circumventing the safety measures to make it happen. Someone would have mentioned the phone swelling up before it blew, I would think.
I also don’t think any foreign objects or manufacturing leftovers are coming in contact with the electrolyte. I know this is a popular theory, but if a batch of batteries (we’re not even sure how big a “batch” is in this case) all have small particles in the electrolyte, we’d be seeing a lot more Note 7s exploding.
A short inside the battery or in the charging circuit combined with an electrolyte that’s been treated with non-flammable additives seems more likely to me. A quick explosion that releases a small amount of pressure and fluid at once could quickly burn itself out if nothing were in contact with the phone. When the phone is in contact with something that is flammable, say the seat of a Jeep, it could cause a fire.
Of course, there could be plenty of other factors that we don’t know about. The manufacturing process used to create a lithium-ion battery for a phone makes them very safe to use. But there is also a lot that could go wrong.
A preliminary report by Samsung to Korean regulators blamed a production error that brought plates within the battery into contact, triggering “excessive heat.” The report noted that more analysis was needed to pinpoint the exact cause.
Initial conclusions indicate an error in production that placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells. That in turn brought negative and positive poles into contact, triggering excessive heat. Samsung however stressed that it needed to carry out a more thorough analysis to determine “the exact cause” of battery damage.
What we do know about the Note 7 and its battery
We have no idea exactly what’s happening with the Note 7 nor does anyone outside of Samsung. But we can make an educated guess based on the little evidence we’re privy to. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. The Note 7 has been determined by Samsung to be faulty and we’re all supposed to stop using them and return them. A replacement without the issue is in production and already on its way to the sales channel. We don’t need to know why it explodes to know that we should get rid of it.
Samsung recommends you power down your Note 7 and stop using it.
Samsung and your carrier (or other retailers like Target or Best Buy) have policies and methods in place that allow you to return your Note 7 without losing any money. Some offer loaner devices you can return when corrected Note 7 phones make their way onto the shelves, while others simply offer an outright refund. Either option is better than risking your hand or your face if the battery does fail.
We’ve compiled everything you need to know in one place, and we’re also happy to answer any questions we can in the comments or on social media.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
Samsung Galaxy Note 7
- Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
- The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
- Here are all four Note 7 colors
- Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
- Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!
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SteamVR through Google Cardboard is weird and kinda great!
You can play SteamVR games with Google Cardboard, but be careful.
Trying VR is the first and best way to get someone excited about VR, but that raises some interesting challenges. The HTC Vive isn’t exactly what you’d call portable, and carting around the $600 Oculus Rift alongside your very expensive PC still isn’t a great option. If you find yourself without a VR headset, yet still curious about the experience, there’s a DIY project in your future! With Google Cardboard and a couple of apps, you can peer into the world of Oculus and SteamVR to get a decent idea of what makes these things so much fun.
Read more on VR Heads!
Samsung’s Note 7 exploding battery ‘fix’ is a 60 percent limit
Samsung has a “quick fix” in the works for stubborn Galaxy Note 7 owners who don’t want to return their devices, despite the global recall over batteries that might potentially explode. The company will roll out a software update on September 20th in South Korea that will limit the Note 7’s battery to a 60 percent charge, which will hopefully prevent overheating, the AP reports.
We still don’t know if and when Samsung plans to deliver a similar update to international users, but it’s probably a safe bet, since it will reduce further liability from consumer injury. Similarly, it’s unclear if Samsung will make the update mandatory to Note 7 users in South Korea. Again, I would be surprised if it does. Samsung plans to start issuing new Note 7 models with updated batteries during the week of September 19th.
The Galaxy Note 7 launch has pretty much been a disaster for Samsung, with dozens of reports about phones exploding and injuring users. Ironically, the phone was also one of Samsung’s most well-reviewed devices. The company is now working with the US government on an official recall in America, following a note from the Consumer Product Safety Commission which urged users not to use the Galaxy Note 7. For now, Samsung suggests that Note 7 owners don’t charge or turn on their phones.
A battery limit isn’t the most high-tech fix, and it’s unclear if that’s enough to actually avoid explosion issues entirely. But Samsung can’t afford to be dogged by continued stories of its flagship phones hurting users.
Source: AP
ICYMI: Soon flying UAVs could pick stuff up; carry it away
Today on In Case You Missed It: A large format hexacopter with mechanical gripper arms is all set to swoop in on your backyard and move some chairs around. Going by the Prodrone’s YouTube video, it can carry 10 kilograms.
Meanwhile, MIT and Georgia Tech researchers developed an imaging system that can read the first nine pages of a closed book. MIT worked out the computational device while Georgia created the algorithm to separate layers of letters.
If you want to see the macro video, that’s here, while the Boston Dynamics Atlas robot update is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Facebook, Google urge Congress to hand over internet control
On October 1st, the US is supposed to hand the “keys” of the internet to ICANN, and Congress is not happy about it. The mostly Republican lawmakers, led by Ted Cruz, feel that ceding control will stifle online freedom and give power to authoritarian governments. However, technology companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter penned an open letter to Congress, urging lawmakers to hand internet domain control to the international community as promised.
The final proposal, drafted by “proud and active members of the internet community,” goes well beyond the US Commerce Department’s original criteria, set in 2014, according to the document. “Furthermore, crucial safeguards are in place to protect human rights, including the freedom of speech,” it adds.
A global, interoperable and stable Internet is essential for our economic and national security, and we remain committed to completing the nearly twenty year transition to … [a] model that will best serve U.S. interests.
The internet is currently controlled by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and has been since its birth. However, many nations are understandably skittish about full US control over what is, after all, the “World Wide Web.” As such, the US agreed to cede control to ICANN, an international body with representatives from academia, government agencies like NASA, corporations and protocol bodies like the Internet Systems Consortium.
Congress will hold a hearing on the handover tomorrow, September 14th. Cruz is expected to grill the NTIA and ICANN on whether they’re fully prepared to deal with censorship attempts by China, Russia and other authoritarian nations. In support of Cruz, Senator Orrin Hatch said earlier this week, “charging ahead with the transition now could undermine internet freedom.”
However, the tech companies wrote that the transition is “ready to be executed,” and that it’s “imperative” that Congress not hold it up. “A global, interoperable and stable Internet is essential for our economic and national security, and we remain committed to completing the nearly twenty year transition to … [a] model that will best serve U.S. interests.”
Via: Reuters
Source: Circle ID
TI’s educational coding tool plugs into your calculator
Despite all the phones and tablets out there, Texas Instruments’ graphing calculators continue to survive. The company’s latest classroom tool even turns them into a device that can teach kids coding and engineering. TI-Innovator Hub plugs into the company’s graphing calculators a lot of middle- and high-school students already have. It’s a palm-sized board with a microcontroller that gives kids a way to build simple engineering projects. They could make LEDs light up, play notes or make small toys move by plugging the components into the hub and writing a program on the calculator.
It transforms TI’s calculator into a pretty cool toy, and based on the video below, it looks like kids find it fun. “Before, I really wasn’t interested in what programming was. But after I started working with the Innovator, it was like a whole new world was opened,” one eighth grader named Jasmine Jones-Pas said. As a nice plus, it’s enclosed in a durable case, since the hub was designed for kids. The bad news is you can’t get one for yourself — it’s not out for sale online or in retail stores and is only available from instructional product dealers.
Source: Texas Instruments
New ‘Shovel Knight’ expansion haunts the chapel next spring
One of the best throwback games in recent memory is definitely Shovel Knight from developer Yacht Club Games. Last September (it’s been that long?), the team dropped the free “Plague of Shadows” expansion for all platforms. This year, we have word of when the next add-on will release. “Specter of Torment” will come out sometime next spring, according to a tweet from Yacht Club. Not much else is known at the moment, but the team did offer a huge update back in June all about new protagonist Specter Knight — wall climb! Dash slash!
pic.twitter.com/wOIa8nAx4q
— Yacht Club Games (@YachtClubGames) September 12, 2016
So, if you’re looking for more details to hold you over until the trees start blooming next year, maybe hit that up. Like the expansions prior, this update will be absolutely, 100 percent free. Still not enough nostalgia for you? Well, then perhaps the RetroUSB AVS console can breathe some new life into your old NES games that inspired Shovel Knight.
Via: Nintendo World Report
Source: Yacht Club Games (Twitter)
iPhone 7 Broke T-Mobile’s All-Time Sales Record on Pre-Order Day
Apple opened pre-orders for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus last Friday at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, and T-Mobile has now revealed that the smartphones shattered all of the carrier’s previous iPhone pre-order records. T-Mobile said pre-orders from Friday through Monday were up nearly 4x compared to the iPhone 6 series two years ago.
T-Mobile also announced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus set a single day sales record for any smartphones ever in the carrier’s history, although it stopped short of sharing any specific numbers. iPhone 7 was already T-Mobile’s top pre-registered smartphone ever, topping pre-registrations for both iPhone 6s and iPhone 6.
iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be available beginning September 16 at T-Mobile stores in the U.S. and on its website. Its prepaid brand MetroPCS customers will carry the smartphones beginning September 23. iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models from AT&T and T-Mobile do not support CDMA networks such as Verizon and Sprint.
T-Mobile is offering a free 32GB iPhone 7 to new or existing customers who trade in their fully functional iPhone 6 or later sans water damage or a shattered screen. A two-year financing agreement is required.
Tag: T-Mobile
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Twelve South Debuts New HiRise 2 for iPhone and iPad
Twelve South today announced the launch of a revamped HiRise, its popular stand for the iPhone and the iPad. The HiRise 2 features an all new design with with a smaller overall footprint but a heavier overall body, so it’s better able to hold up larger devices like the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
Due to its small size, it’s not recommended for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but it works with all other Lightning-based devices, including Apple’s new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. It charges all kinds of Apple devices, like the Magic Mouse, the Apple Remote, and even the upcoming AirPods (through the included case).
Along with a new design, the HiRise 2 comes in two new colors, a matte black to match the new “Black” iPhone and a matte white shade.
The basic HiRise 2 is priced at $39.99 and is available in black or silver, and users must provide their own Lightning cables. The HiRise 2 Deluxe is available in black, silver, or white for $59.99 and ships with both an MFi-certified Lightning cable and a micro-USB cable so either iOS devices or devices that require a USB cable (including many iOS device battery cases) can be charged.
The HiRise 2 is available from the Twelve South website starting today.
Tag: Twelve South
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iOS 10 Bug Breaks Kwikset Kevo’s Touch-to-Open Functionality
Kwikset has announced that its Kevo smart lock’s touch-to-open technology will only work on iOS 10 if the Kevo app is open and visible on an iPhone’s screen, due to a bug related to Bluetooth LE peripheral mode.
Kwikset said it is working closely with Apple to support a solution that will restore the functionality as quick as possible. iOS 10 will be publicly released later today, so the fix will likely be included in a subsequent software update.
In the meantime, Kwikset offers some temporary solutions for continuing to use Kevo’s touch-to-open functionality:
– When at your door, open the Kevo app on your iOS phone or smart device, making sure you can see the app on your device screen and touch the Kevo smart lock on your door
– When at your door, open the Kevo app on your iOS phone or smart device, making sure you can see the app on your device screen, and use the app to lock and unlock the door (In Home Locking and Unlocking)
– If you have a Kevo key fob, the Touch-to-Open functionality of Kevo will still work
Kwikset said the iOS 10 bug does not affect the security of Kevo smart locks, while the sending, receiving, and revoking of eKeys is also not affected.
Related Roundup: iOS 10
Tags: Bluetooth LE, Kwikset
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