More Battery Problems for Sony

nevillethedevil writes "Looks like more problems for Sony batteries. According to pcmag, Acer is warning that some faulty batteries in its laptops could overheat and cause a fire. They will be recalling almost 27,000 Sony made lithium-ion batteries."

Comments

Great job, PC Mag.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Any time I read about a lithium battery catching fire, I always wonder why the reporting sources don't educate the public about the inherent danger of a lithium fire, specifically the fact that water really isn't a good thing to be putting on it.

Re:Great job, PC Mag.

[jimstapleton]

* Water may be used to extinguish packaging fires if batteries have not ruptured; water is not an effective extinguishing agent for a battery fire.

That pretty much confirms the GP's post. As for why? Lithium is a strong electron doner, as such it will react quite well with almost anything containing oxygen, just like any element on the far left of the periodic table. Another good example is magnesium.

Re:Great job, PC Mag.

[aadvancedGIR]

Lithium violently reacts with water, do the wrong thing and you change a hot but small fire into an explosion.
While it is not the exact best solution, a class B fire extinguisher (CO2) can help keeping things under some control by screening O2 out and cooling down the fire.

Re:Great job, PC Mag.

[kunakida]

A lithium battery has very little lithium in it. Some of the lithium is already converted to lithium oxide.

Just remember that any fire needs 3 things: oxygen, fuel and heat. Remove any one and you kill the fire.
Also consider that the most important thing about a fire is how quickly it will expand. You can expect a fire to double in size roughly every 20 to 30 seconds if it has material available to burn.

1st - get someone else (if there is someone else) to call the fire department. If you fail to contain the fire, you need professionals help ASAP. If you are alone and you think you can handle it without taking chances, you can call the fire department after first trying to handle it. Use your judgement and stay calm.

If the fire is still small, just grab the device containing it and toss it into a empty (empty it out if necessary) metal trash can (or a clear area of concrete floor if available) and wait until the fire burns out. Do protect your eyes by avoiding looking at it as much as possible while you are holding it. If you have some sort of rubber or sufficiently thick cotton mat (like a fire blanket), you can use that to cover the fire and contain it until you can put it in the trash can. The mat may catch fire eventually, but it will be more resistant than most other things. Do not use a plastic sheet as plastic melts and if it gets on your skin it can cause some bad blistering. Once it is in the trash can do not cover it with something unless you are sure it is not flammable and will resist high heat - a fire is harder to fight if you cannot see it. Do monitor the fire in the garbage can to see that it does not grow.

Otherwise, if the fire is too big for you to carry the device containing the battery, the fuel for the fire is now overwhelmingly whatever it is sitting on or surrounded by, so fight that type of fire instead. The lithium left in the battery is irrelevant.

In any case, a large volume of water will cool any type of fire sufficiently to a more manageable level, and make most surrounding combustibles harder to ignite. The important thing to remember about using water is to turn off A/C power from wall sockets etc. first.

If at any point you feel you can't manage to handle the fire, just get out of the building in a calm manner and wait for the fire department. Make sure everyone gets out and keep people from returning inside.

Re:Great job, PC Mag.

[mstahl]

The proper way is with a dry chemical fire extinguisher rated for electrical and metal fires, so a class ABC or BC fire extinguisher. They usually spray out a combination of carbon dioxide and/or baking soda-like material and can safely be used on any kind of fire.

For those who don't know...

[Capeman]

From wikipedia: Lithium fires are difficult to extinguish, requiring special chemicals designed to smother them.

Painfull

[Tinfoil]

Well, I do have a couple of affected Acer laptops, and so far the process is painfull. The operators on the other end answer the phone in a language unknown to me, though they promptly switched to very understandable english after I spoke. However, the line quality is so horrible that my call was dropped 3 times so far, and I still haven't processed a replacement request.

Great jorb, Acer!

Re:Painfull

[Anonymous Coward]

Great jorb, Acer!

Coach Z, is that you?

Sony missed their true calling

[Bugs42]

Why is Sony wasting their time making electronics? Clearly, they could make a FORTUNE in the international arms market.

Re:Part of Sony PR Campaign

[morgan_greywolf]

You think a fire will destroy the contents of your hard drive.

It might, it might not. It depends on how hot the fire gets. A battery fire that doesn't set off a 5-alarm blaze isn't like to do much to your average HDD's platters, if anything. A 5-alarm blaze that burns hot enough in close proximity can very easily melt a typical HDD's aluminum platters to the point that data cannot be recovered. (aluminum has a very low melting point) Note that there's no guarantees, though, that at least SOME data MIGHT be salvageable, since HDDs have been known to survive fires with some or even all data intact.

6. You think "the Feds" will knock.

Sure they will. With a nice a big stick. ;)