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Exploding Cell Phone Battery Kills

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hate-when-that-happens dept.

LingNoi writes "A man in Korea was found dead at his workplace Wednesday morning and his mobile phone battery was melted in his shirt pocket. No one knows for sure yet but a doctor who examined the body said, "He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken" We have heard of other dangerous battery products here on Slashdot." Update: 11/30 17:34 GMT by Z : Turns out the melted battery was the least of his worries; he was actually hit by a truck.

3 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Grain of Salt Required? by fbjon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, it's certainly demolished. Pictures.

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  2. Re:Grain of Salt Required? by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Informative

    Far too much energy was released thermally for this to have caused physical trauma (kinetic). If it was an explosion, the phone would have stress type damage - it would be cracked and broken into pieces. The amount of melting indicates a relatively slow release of energy, melting the plastic and burning the clothes.

    Think of a firecracker. If it explodes, there won't be heat damage to nearby objects. However if you take the powder out and light it, it will burn for a long enough period of time to cause thermal damage. Same thing here - the majority of the energy was thermal and not kinetic.

    Dan East

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  3. Re:This is the second such fatality this year. by Fizzl · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...Aaaaand the cells are not usually packed in container suitable for compressing combustion into actual explosion. What you get is a nasty chemical fire which is virtually inextinguishtable in the time it releases its energy.

    There's no way a LiPo cell in plastic packaging could explode with considerable force.

    I build my own RC airplane batteries. I have right now 50 x 2400mAh cells at home. I have experimented shorting fast discharging cells. I have tried puncturing them. I have tried over charging them. I have tried deforming them. Yes, you get spectacular fireworks, but no explosions in conventional containers.

    If I _wanted_ to explode one, I probably could. But I would seal the cell in sharpnel grenade style iron shell or something...

    PS. Discard your Li* battery if it ever puffs even slightly or gets a visible deformation from a shock. Damaged Li*'s are unstable.

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