Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explodes In New York, Burns Six-Year-Old Boy (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A six-year-old boy from Brooklyn has reportedly become the latest victim of Samsung's disastrous exploding Galaxy Note 7 batteries. The boy had been using the device at his family home when it "suddenly burst into flames," according to the New York Post. He was rushed to hospital with burns to his body. Samsung issued a recall of 2.5 million of its latest flagship phone on September 2 -- which had only been released the previous month -- after 35 reports that lithium batteries were exploding while they were being charged. The injured boy's grandmother said that the fire caused by the phone was strong enough to "set off alarms in my house." "He is home now," Linda Lewis told press. "He doesn't want to see or go near any phones. He's been crying to his mother." Samsung issued a statement on Saturday, urging owners of the Galaxy Note 7 to "power down your device and return to using your previous phone. We will voluntarily replace your Galaxy Note 7 device with a new one, beginning on September 19th... We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to our customers." The recall has caused Samsung's stock to plunge. On Monday, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. stock suffered from its biggest one-day price decline in its 28-year history as a public company.

Comments

Re:Smartphones

[ganjadude]

its been 10 days since the very public recalls have been announced, i mean..... the adults really should have not been letting him play with it

Still way too little schadenfreude on the net...

[ffkom]

... where are the photoshop artists when you need them to create suicide-bomber pictures with belts made of Note 7s?

Exploding or going up in flames

[gnasher719]

To me, "exploding" and "going up in flames" is not the same thing. If I hold a phone in my hands and it goes up in flames, I drop it and might have some burns if I'm unlucky. If I hold a phone in my hands and it explodes, good bye hands.

Is there any reliable information what actually happens?

Re:Exploding or going up in flames

[hey!]

If I recall, technically an "explosion" is supersonic deflagration, which of course is accompanied by a shock wave. It's the shock wave that's the salient feature of an explosion.

Practically anything flammable can explode if it is finely mixed with oxygen (or an oxidizer) and it is *contained*. If you pour the black powder from a bullet into a line and touch it off it's go up pfft! But it won't explode because it's not contained. On the flip side flour or powdered coffee creamer can be sifted into a tube and ignited and it will explode, but not with much force.

A lithium ion cell has plenty of flammable bits inside, a source of O2 (the electrode), and of course it is contained, but it's engineered not to explode. It's engineered not to catch fire too, so you can't rule rule out either possibility since something's gone very wrong.

It's not either/or too: you can get a small explosion that once it escapes its immediate confines dissipates into an expanding cloud of burning gas -- or even a fireball. It can be quite impressive, and while not packing the shattering power it would if all the fuel was consumed at supersonic speed, it can be quite impressive and destructive.

Re:No Thermal Fuse?

[wierd_w]

This comes from bad electrolyte or bad quality control in the battery's construction.

One of the following is happening:

1) the cathode of the battery is fraying apart too quickly. (LiON batteries have cathodes that shrink and swell under charge and discharge, as they need to have a very high permeability to ionic lithium salts in solution. The actual absorption of the electrolyte during charging splits the cathode apart slowly over time. That's why the batteries wear out. In this case, the cathode is prematurely disintegrating, and the frayed out bits are shorting with the annode.)

2) the electrolyte inside the pack is of poor quality/improper. Instead of just migrating into the porous cathode during charging, it is breaking down, and depositing metallic lithium dendrites inside the cathode. These can cause short circuits, much like tin whiskers do.

3) the charge logic is improper, causing either breakdown of the electrolyte, or causing premature cathode disintegration through overcharging.

in all cases, the fire happens after a dead short with the annode occurs inside the battery.

Normally, the charge controller uses a thermistor to tell if thr cell is charging properly or not.if it is not charging properly, it disables the cell to prevent electrolyte and cathode breakdown, and the subsequent fire these cause.

in the endless madness for thinner and thinner batteries, it is possible that thermally assisted detection of bad charging is less effective, because of the high surface area to weight ratio of the thiner battery cells. (they radiate the heat too quickly because they are thin and flat, so the thermistor reading isnt as accurate.)

 

Re:Smartphones

[saloomy]

Even if they didn't know, they should be responsible. The news has been ADAMANT about reporting on this recall, and making a lot of hoopla about it. Samsung issued a recall. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let them not win a lawsuit against Samsung.

If they sue, Samsung is in trouble cause it admitted a fault and issued a recall. Shouldn't we encourage companies to recall products when there are safety hazards and they are willing to take the financial hit and do the responsible thing? They will never admit fault if it exposes them to liability in court.