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What's Wrong With Lithium Ion Batteries?
An anonymous Coward writes "Lithium ion batteries short-circuit. They overheat. They burst into flames. The reasons behind the recent spate of problems with a technology invented by Sony more than a decade ago are complex and varied, making for one big engineering headache."
Yeah, but they're great for bipolar disorders.
And isn't that what a battery per definition has?
Engineers face difficult challenges all the time. Everything is a tradeoff of sorts. Safety is routinely traded against cost and size. LiIon and LiPoly both have energy densities considerably higher than the next readily available technology (NiMH), thus the reason to drive towards the technology.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14417
I wrote that before batteries going boom was the latest fashion trend. The problem is simple, you have a lot of energy in a small area and people crying out for higher densities. If _ANYTHING_ goes wrong, you have a high likelihood for a lot of energy released in a short amount of time.
Couple this with reactive/flamable substance that make up batteries, and you have a lightshow. There is no magic to it all, simple physics. Lots of energy released around reactive things, you need both for a modern battery.
Some designs minimize the risk, none remove it. As always, nothing new under the sun.
-Charlie
and look at what's right. First thing that comes to mind, no other abbreviation sounds as cool as Li-on.
Rawr.
Anything that contains lots of energy in a small and compact volume, is dangerous. Explosives, and modern batteries, are really not that different. Both contain a huge amount of energy, in a comparatively small area. As battery technology improves, batteries will become even more dangerous.
With old heavy duty, or alkaline batteries, the worst that could happen was usually a leak. While annoying, it usually didn't pose any dangers. Modern batteries catch fire and explode. Eventually, we'll probably have a nuclear powerplant inside our mp3-players, at which time, they will hopefully include some additional safeguards, such as a fuse. But all modern batteries (lithium, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer) will explode or catch fire, if there's a serious enough malfunction.
Fortunately, we have supercapacitors. While they're not there yet for energy density (still about 10x too little) they're rapidly improving. 10x isn't much at the rate these things have been improving, and there are plenty of labs with pieces that are much better than currently available commercial offerings, but that still need development work. If I had to guess, I'd say it's 5 years until the first supercaps appear in serious commercial use, and less than 10 until LiIon has gone the way of NiMH.
Of course, if you believe the rumors then it might be even faster than that -- we might be seeing serious applications in a year or so.
I, for one, will be glad to give LiIon a proper burial. But until then, we work with what's available.
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/engineerin
Even better there's a link to that article in the writeup! Pretty handy.
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It MUST be bad!
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As others have mentioned, the problem with the existing batteries is energy density. All fuel sources have the exact some problem, from capacitors, to uranium, to gasoline. They can release all that energy dangerously under the wrong conditions. This isn't a problem for which there is any easy fix, other than being really careful to insure those conditions are never met.
Existing capacitors in your computer can make quite a boom...
Acually, if you actually RTFA, it raises exactly the same problems you write about, so I'm curious how you could call it moronic without, you know, calling yourself a moron ;)
That said, I still have to wonder about some tradeoffs. Essentially, the way I read the article:
1. A lot (if not most) of the increasing risk was in the name of cutting costs as such, or cost per capacity. E.g., the original Cobalt, which was expensive but apparently safe, got then replaced with Nickel, then with even cheaper Nickel-Manganese alloy. I'm not sure how that can be a problem, but _something_ (this or something else) along the way apparently turned a safe battery design into a potential time bomb.
2. (Or maybe 1a.) They seem to be blaming the factory in China where everyone outsourced the actual manufacturing to. Again in the name of cutting costs. Maybe it's just blame-shifting and finger pointing, but it raises a valid theoretical concern. It's not easy to know, once a battery is assembled and sealed, what really is inside. If, theoretically, they shafted you for an extra buck, how would you know? You can put all sorts of checks in place in your own factory, but once you've outsourced it, it's out of your control.
It even gives you an example of what can go wrong in that scenario. If the separating membrane doesn't soften and collapse at a given temperature, the battery essentially just lost the designed protection against catching fire. What if someone replaces that foil with something cheaper, but which doesn't work that way?
3. (Or maybe 1b.) Apparently at least one batch is suspected to have been manufactured with counterfeit materials. I have to wonder if this wasn't just because they were cheaper. I.e., cost cutting again.
4. Not cost cutting, but competitive advantage again, apparently some laptop manufacturers recharge their batteries more "aggressively" (read: exceed the rated recharge current) so they can get a minor competitive edge there. It apparently (according to TFA) causes the battery to vibrate, and might cause particles to impale the membrane and shortcircuit the battery.
So while I'm not against capitalism or anything, it makes me, you know, wonder. Maybe the drive to cut costs can be taken to dangerous extremes? Just a thought.
Yes, it should fix itself, companies would in an ideal world avoid loss of reputation due to faulty products, etc. But sometimes it's too late. E.g., it's already suspected that a plane crash was due to a laptop igniting in the hold. E.g, an even worse case was when in 1937 a pharma company offered a liquid antibiotic where the actual antibiotic wasn't solluble in water, but someone found out it was solluble in diethylene glycol, a deadly poison. It was what prompted the FDA to mandate extensive testing for medicine. (And speaking of diethylene glycol, it seems to keep reappearing recently in Chinese-manufactured toothpaste. No doubt because it's cheaper than something less toxic.) Etc.
Do I have a solution? Nope. It makes me wonder, though.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The batteries that are causing troubles now are all Lithium polymer batteries. The electrolyte-fluid in them has been replaced with a polymer that amongst other things made it possible to replace the heavy metal cylinder with aluminium/plastic packaging and make the battery in all kinds of forms.
Unfortunately, at the same time the chemistry of the cells was changed such that if a thermal runaway ever happened, the venting gasses would ignite with oxygen and would ignite the cells next to it too. That is exactly what is happening.
I am rather supprised that no one yet has mentioned A123 systems. They make/market a new type of lithium-(nano)phosphate cell, that has none of the drawbacks of lithium-polymer batteries. They will not catch fire in a thermal runaway or when pierced, can be much more abused than LiPos and have a much longer lifespan to boot (2000 cycles instead of 500). It's no wonder that these batteries will be in the next generation of hybrid cars, as they weigh half as much as the NiMH batteries used now (LiPo would be too dangerous in a collision) and can generate much more current too. (~10C for NiMH, ~40C for A123).
So there is hope one the battery technology front, it's just that the current best option is a bit dangerous.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Batteries will continue to periodically blow up as long as we use them, it's the inherent result of creating devices with so much energy density.
They were first released commercially by Sony, they were not invented by Sony.
No, the reasons are not ambiguous, they are clearly outlined. There is nothing wrong with the technology, the entire problem is the lack of quality control in battery factories in China. Sony is not the only one to get screwed by poor QC in Chinese factories, so has Mattell who are scrambling to recall ~20 million toys painted with lead paint, and J&J, who are scrambling to recall 10 million fake diabetes kits
In the article itself, fingers are clearly pointed
I don't think anybody realizes just how shoddy quality control is in China. Just as there is absolutely no respect for intellectual property, the Chinese, being new to capitalism, don't understand the value of quality control. They've never had to suffer the consequences of legal action.
The culture just does not exist. Some argue that this is a good sign, a necessary phase in capitalism that China is passing through that the USA passed through once before.
I'm not trying to be a troll. China I'm sure will improve and their industry is surely chastened by the huge hue and cry around the world. But until things get better, watch out, and for more than just exploding batteries:
Just setting the record straight
shooting is not too good for my enemies
Didn't Bell Labs and university researchers come up with Lithium Ion technology. Sony were first to market commercially, but I've never seen anything crediting them with the invention of the technology.
You could have someones eye out with one of those... here, try this handful of wet mud instead...
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
It's all about size, weight, and the abusive charge cycle that laptops and cellphones are required to go through. From what I've read, the thing that really stands out for lithium batteries is the lack of cell memory. Here's a link comparing 4 battery types: http://batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm
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You may be interested to know, the factor of safety is actually very low in aerospace. Meaning, engineers design systems with smaller margins for exceeding design requirements. The reason is weight; every pound you add by over engineering a part's yield strength, is a pound you have to get in the air or fly to space. The industry compensates for this low factor of safety with very strict maintenance cycles and regulations.
If automobiles were engineered like this, we could probably use half the amount of fuel we currently do. The downside is you would have to get monthly or even weekly inspections and preventative maintenance.
Of course, my source could be wrong.
AMD and Intel kept making more powerful processors for desktop machines. Laptops had to become more powerful to stay competitive in performance with desktops. Then AMD came out with new low power processors and people started putting Pentium 4 parts in laptops to compete (fortunately, Intel finally managed to come up with the Pentium M a year later or the problem would be 100x worse), which put battery makers under enormous pressure to come out with products that could supply the power. The Li battery is basically sound but the technology was pushed beyond what it was capable of. Too much power in too small a space.
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Net effect:
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