What's Wrong With Lithium Ion Batteries? 289
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."
What's wrong? They store to much energy! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Some stuf I wrote on this a while ago (Score:5, Informative)
This is (lately) misinformation. It's basically true of any conventional LiIon battery type. But unlike the LiIon chemistry in common use today in laptop batteries, the newer lithium phosphate (LiFePO4) LiIon chemistry is inherently non-flammable and non-explosive. It's also considerably less energy dense than standard LiIon chemistries and more expensive to manufacture, thus big business' near-total lack of interest in rushing to develop it for consumer devices over the past several years. But it is now used in a few high current drain applications where conventional LiIon would be a poor choice, e.g. in some DeWalt power tools. When the cost comes down enough, you'll see lots more of these batteries, notably in electric vehicles, where they effectively eliminate laptop-type LiIon's barely-restrained violent urge to turn vehicles into smoldering heaps of rubble.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phospha
Lithium polymer, not all lithium batteries (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Lithium Ions (Score:5, Informative)
Sony did not invent Li-Ion (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What a moronic post (Score:2, Informative)
And if safety, cost, and size were not "specified", batteries would be huge, cost $25,000 a piece, and would explode when dropped.
Re:Actually, if you RTFA, it's not moronic (Score:3, Informative)
That's the situation now actually. There are shops here (in Hong Kong) that will sell you a third-party laptop battery; or they'll crack open your old one and rebuild it with standard LiOn cells. Similar ro laser toner refillers. Don't they have this elsewhere? Perhaps liability concerns prevent it in the US.
Re:Some stuf I wrote on this a while ago (Score:2, Informative)
Many reasons for Lithium Batteries (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lithium polymer, not all lithium batteries (Score:5, Informative)
The got a big writeup in the September issue of IEEE Spectrum: http://spectrum.ieee.org/sep07/5490 [ieee.org]
Re:Lithium Ions (Score:4, Informative)
The goal was a treatment for personality disorders, but they were studying ammonia (or something similarly revolting sounding), and they had to put it with a co-molecule/atom to give it the right properties. They tried with several different associate atoms/moleculres. Anyway, the results showed no effect whatsoever, except with the co-molecule being lithium. They concluded the lithium was what they wanted, not the ammonia.
Re:Actually, if you RTFA, it's not moronic (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a lot more wary of third party battery replacements with Lithium-based cells. Once you get to this kind of energy density, you basically have a bomb and a small circuit trying to persuade it not to explode. In this situation, I'd much rather I knew exactly who to hold responsible if the circuit failed. Last time I checked, third party batteries for my current laptop were only 10% cheaper than original ones, so it's not worth the risk (especially since it is likely to invalidate the warranty on the rest of the machine should the battery damage it, and the computer is worth much more than the battery).
One thing I've noticed in recent years is that it's become a lot harder to charge batteries outside the laptop. It used to be that you could have two batteries, one charging and one in use, and just pop inside to swap them periodically. Now, most laptops seem to only be chargeable inside the laptop, dramatically reducing the usefulness of the second battery.
Re:Lithium Ions (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Some stuf I wrote on this a while ago (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lithium Ions (Score:1, Informative)