Lithium battery factory fire 1

[thebard3]

BBC article with link to video of the onset of a lithium battery fire which ultimately took 23 lives.
Link

Brad Waybright

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

 

[EdStainless]

Must have been hell inside there.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[enginesrus]

And of course no pollutants left the building. Just clean and healthy.

 

[Murph 9000]

Reportedly 35,000 cells stored in the area where the fire broke out. Roughly equivalent to 5 Tesla EV battery packs (the numbers vary, but around 7,000 cells in each of their cars), if they were 18650s; or 10 Tesla Model 3s with their 21700s.

 

[thebard3]

That video showing batteries shooting through the air like bottle rockets, though....

Brad Waybright

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

 

[TugboatEng]

Reminds me of my college days when we would snap the sticks off bottle rockets and light them. I will not repeat the name we had for them.

 

[SnTMan]

You could used to buy those here.

If you still can, they're called something else

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[mfgenggear]

Sitting in a car and that happens

 

[TugboatEng]

I have had a bottle rocket come into my car through an open window while I was driving. That was quite the exciting moment.

 

[RVAmeche]

Seemed like a lot of smoke was being generated initially with no visible fire system response. I would've assumed any area with storage of batteries would have a lot of detectors and suppression coverage to stop it from rapidly spreading across the building.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

From the stuff I get on the subject of Li battery fires most systems are particularly useless. You need to rapid chill to have any chance of stopping it chaining.

 

[mfgenggear]

It reminds me of creek fire, literally all most impossible to stop. Unless it can be deprived of oxygen

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Deprivation of O2 doesn't work.

You have to chill them.

 

[mfgenggear]

Lol chill it, you mean freeze it, is there a white paper on that.interesting and why does depriving of oxygen does not work for combustion.
Is it similar to pure sodium

 

[3DDave]

There is enough oxidizer inside a li-ion cell to sustain combustion. It's a road flare. The required cooling is to keep the temperature of neighboring cells low enough they don't cook-off and overheat.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

It generates it's own oxidiser when the cathode gets cooked.

Thermal runaway is the initial generator of heat and temperature rise.

There is loads out there on the subject. Dealing with them is a major issue in transport both marine and aviation.

Aircraft carry freezing kits to stop mobile phones etc that have been damaged in seats.

 

[3DDave]

I haven't seen freezing kits - I have seen fire-resistant bags and boxes that have enough insulation and some external fire suppression materials to keep a phone battery up to a laptop that is in flames safely contained.

 

[mfgenggear]

Yes ok so it has to be contained immediately.
Lol do they make a big fire box for your ev vehicle. In jest

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

We have had ours 2 years now.

There is a sealable expanding bag to put them in.

Two aerosol cans to do the cooling.

The cabin crew drop them in the bag.And use one aerosol can then roll it sealed.

Wait 90 seconds then discharge the second.

Roll and securely seal the bag.

Then usual immerse in a rubbish cart covered in water.

Used in anger twice and worked well.

I would prefer to deal with an engine failure than a hot li ion battery on board.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Here is a promotion vid from the German supplier of the ones we have.

https://youtu.be/2Blp13BibgA?si=ppH_1bWHvxBWsVhg

And they say none chemical but one of the in anger cases the cabin crew ended up with frostbite.

Seems to me there is something endothermic going on. It could have just been aerosol gas expansion.