Massive Li battery fire in Korea factory kills 22.

[Andy Chee]

What I want to know is why the lithium push happened before the infrastructure to recapture this crap was established and proven. 

Imagine if you applied this philosophy to computers.  We'd all still be using 8086 or 6502 based computers with CRT displays, no progress would be made until e-waste could be safely processed.

[coppice]

Apparently those were lithium-thionyl chloride batteries, and it does not look like they made any rechargeable batteries.

Those are usually very docile products, used by the billion, with very little to be concerned about.

[2N3055]

Apparently those were lithium-thionyl chloride batteries, and it does not look like they made any rechargeable batteries.

Those are usually very docile products, used by the billion, with very little to be concerned about.

Apparently not so:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19870007963

Google "lithium-thionyl chloride batteries fire"

[MT]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

[coppice]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

If you ban LiPo on planes, you ban anyone carrying a phone, tablet, or notebook. The kind of thing every business traveller needs to make travel work for them. Its not feasible to ban them. They have to be managed. There are controls on batteries in checked in luggage. They try to stop people travelling with large amounts of LiPo batteries.

[tooki]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

If you ban LiPo on planes, you ban anyone carrying a phone, tablet, or notebook. The kind of thing every business traveller needs to make travel work for them. Its not feasible to ban them. They have to be managed. There are controls on batteries in checked in luggage. They try to stop people travelling with large amounts of LiPo batteries.

Not just business travelers. I'd estimate that on a typical flight, greater than 100%* of passengers have mobile phones. It's not as though having a mobile phone is some kind of an extravagance these days, they're a basic utility for everyone -- it boggles my mind that anyone would think that categorically banning lithium-ion batteries on airplanes is a sensible idea, never mind a practical one. (And before they say "well just take another mode of transport!" -- there are routes that are either nearly impossible to do by any other mode of transport, or categorically impossible. And since not every flight taken is a vacation trip, "just don't travel" is not a useful option, either.)

We'd also have to ban Bluetooth earphones, e-readers, digital cameras, vape devices, power banks, flashlights, and other obviously useful things. Oh, and we'd have to ban the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, too.





*Because many people have two phones, especially business travelers.

[coppice]

Not just business travelers. I'd estimate that on a typical flight, greater than 100%* of passengers have mobile phones. It's not as though having a mobile phone is some kind of an extravagance these days, they're a basic utility for everyone -- it boggles my mind that anyone would think that categorically banning lithium-ion batteries on airplanes is a sensible idea, never mind a practical one. (And before they say "well just take another mode of transport!" -- there are routes that are either nearly impossible to do by any other mode of transport, or categorically impossible. And since not every flight taken is a vacation trip, "just don't travel" is not a useful option, either.)

We'd also have to ban Bluetooth earphones, e-readers, digital cameras, vape devices, power banks, flashlights, and other obviously useful things. Oh, and we'd have to ban the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, too.


*Because many people have two phones, especially business travelers.

I said business travellers because most holiday makers would probably still travel if you banned all their LiPo batteries. Taking them away from a business traveller usually wrecks the whole purpose of the journey. Its business travel the keeps the airline industry going.

[MT]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

If you ban LiPo on planes, you ban anyone carrying a phone, tablet, or notebook. The kind of thing every business traveller needs to make travel work for them. Its not feasible to ban them. They have to be managed. There are controls on batteries in checked in luggage. They try to stop people travelling with large amounts of LiPo batteries.

They try, yeah thats hilarious! 10 or 100 lipos, is the limit on a whim?
Well, dont tie your life to smart phones, tablets etc or make special bissniss traveler rides to they can die on their own.
What about a fire proof box on every flight where travelers are required to place the battery before flight? Is that to much of a safety requirement?

[coppice]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

If you ban LiPo on planes, you ban anyone carrying a phone, tablet, or notebook. The kind of thing every business traveller needs to make travel work for them. Its not feasible to ban them. They have to be managed. There are controls on batteries in checked in luggage. They try to stop people travelling with large amounts of LiPo batteries.

They try, yeah thats hilarious! 10 or 100 lipos, is the limit on a whim?
Well, dont tie your life to smart phones, tablets etc or make special bissniss traveler rides to they can die on their own.
What about a fire proof box on every flight where travelers are required to place the battery before flight? Is that to little to demand?

Several planes have had emergency landings due to problems with LFP batteries in the plane's systems. I am unaware of an emergency landing related to the LiPo batteries in people's personal electronics. Maybe you should focus on the things causing real world problems.

[MT]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

If you ban LiPo on planes, you ban anyone carrying a phone, tablet, or notebook. The kind of thing every business traveller needs to make travel work for them. Its not feasible to ban them. They have to be managed. There are controls on batteries in checked in luggage. They try to stop people travelling with large amounts of LiPo batteries.

They try, yeah thats hilarious! 10 or 100 lipos, is the limit on a whim?
Well, dont tie your life to smart phones, tablets etc or make special bissniss traveler rides to they can die on their own.
What about a fire proof box on every flight where travelers are required to place the battery before flight? Is that to little to demand?

Several planes have had emergency landings due to problems with LFP batteries in the plane's systems. I am unaware of an emergency landing related to the LiPo batteries in people's personal electronics. Maybe you should focus on the things causing real world problems.

Im focusing on real problems  but you seams just apologetic for reckless human behaviour , 9 years ago it was a real problem then.

[tooki]

I said business travellers because most holiday makers would probably still travel if you banned all their LiPo batteries.

I don't think that is even remotely true. Not to mention that, as I said, not all non-business travel is for leisure.

[tooki]

What about a fire proof box on every flight where travelers are required to place the battery before flight? Is that to much of a safety requirement?

What would be eminently doable, though IMHO completely unnecessary, is to require every device to be inside a fireproof lithium battery pouch. (Edit: apparently they're known as "thermal containment bags".)

However, I think that's really overkill. What isn't overkill is what airlines are already doing, which is to carry empty fireproof pouches, into which an overheating device can be placed as needed, using the fireproof gloves they also carry.

[soldar]

Im focusing on real problems  but you seams just apologetic for reckless human behaviour , 9 years ago it was a real problem then.

That does not support your point. At all.

It says a pallet with thousands of batteries in the hold of the airplane could explode if it caught fire. It does not say my cell phone is going to bring down an airplane.

[tooki]

Im focusing on real problems  but you seams just apologetic for reckless human behaviour , 9 years ago it was a real problem then.

Coppice said people's personal electronics (as in, the electronics carried with them).

Newsflash: cargo aircraft don't carry passengers.

[PlainName]

Still dont get it why gov regulators allows LiPo on planes!

If you ban LiPo on planes, you ban anyone carrying a phone, tablet, or notebook. The kind of thing every business traveller needs to make travel work for them. Its not feasible to ban them. They have to be managed. There are controls on batteries in checked in luggage. They try to stop people travelling with large amounts of LiPo batteries.

Ain't going to happen but let's suppose they were banned when the problems first became apparent. Would business travellers have stayed home? The most likely workaround would have been removable batteries - you leave your battery at departures and just grab a new one from the arrival airport. Since they'd be being sold by the million they would be cheap, and there might even have been trade-in at departures to provide the supplies for arrivals.

OK, so what about the 8 hours in the air when you can't browse pron? Surely it wouldn't have been beyond the wit of an airline to provide 19V power points (or USB or whatever). After all, you ain't going anywhere other than sitting in that seat the entire time.

Bonus: Apple would have had to conform or suffer a drop in revenue - fate worse than death for them. And if you can replace the battery the chances are other repairs would have been much easier too.

Too late now, though.

[coppice]

Coppice said people's personal electronics (as in, the electronics carried with them).

Newsflash: cargo aircraft don't carry passengers.

But passenger aircraft do carry a lot of cargo. I wonder what, if any, controls they have against this type of incident in a cargo bay threatening hundreds of passengers?

[KE5FX]

What will happen if you ban batteries on planes is that people will drive instead.  Congratulations, your death toll just went up by 10x or more.

[brucehoult]

What will happen if you ban batteries on planes is that people will drive instead.  Congratulations, your death toll just went up by 10x or more.

Here are my flights from 1-October-2017 to 30-September-2018 (12 months). Which ones should I have driven instead?

https://hoult.org/trips1.png
https://hoult.org/trips2.png

That year was a bit excessive. Since March 2020 the only flights I've taken were to Fiji on March 30 this year and back home on May 31. Not really practical to drive that one either.

[KE5FX]

   Obviously not all air trips are replaceable with car trips.  Many are.

[tooki]

Coppice said people's personal electronics (as in, the electronics carried with them).

Newsflash: cargo aircraft don't carry passengers.

But passenger aircraft do carry a lot of cargo. I wonder what, if any, controls they have against this type of incident in a cargo bay threatening hundreds of passengers?

For all intents and purposes, they are not allowed as cargo.

https://www.iata.org/contentassets/05e6d8742b0047259bf3a700bc9d42b9/lithium-battery-guidance-document.pdf

[PlainName]

Which ones should I have driven instead?

If you picked the right season you could drive across the Bering Sea, so that would be half of them

[coppercone2]

these are lithium primary cells of the lithium thinoyl chloride type.


Useful for cold temp low current, i.e. D cell "xenos". About as safe as a xenomorph

Their used for high rel big shelf life and hermetically sealed. More then likely this was a dodgy seal, combined with maybe a sliver of metal to short it out, or simply a internal short to blow the top open.

They are built robust, its designed to survive a autoclave or antarctica.


They contain a corrosive reagent, which is lithium thinoyl chloride. Its like sulfuric acid tantalum capacitors but for batteries.


I suspect that basically they use these for medical. People want cheap medical and its driven down to a cost because whos paying for that stuff anyway, its not like you can't pay in a civil society. Medical devices are often extremely cheap (one use), i.e. a single use surgical related device. I suspect this battery was built to a cost.

[tom66]

They try, yeah thats hilarious! 10 or 100 lipos, is the limit on a whim?
Well, dont tie your life to smart phones, tablets etc or make special bissniss traveler rides to they can die on their own.
What about a fire proof box on every flight where travelers are required to place the battery before flight? Is that to much of a safety requirement?

There is a limit, yes.  100Wh per battery.  Up to two spares per device carried.  And then there's the overall 10kg weight allowance.

Presumably this limit has been set by experiment, a 100Wh battery fire can be extinguished on board the aircraft or propagation of the fire is not so rapid as to prevent the aircraft from landing.

[Gyro]

these are lithium primary cells of the lithium thinoyl chloride type.


Useful for cold temp low current, i.e. D cell "xenos". About as safe as a xenomorph

Their used for high rel big shelf life and hermetically sealed. More then likely this was a dodgy seal, combined with maybe a sliver of metal to short it out, or simply a internal short to blow the top open.

They are built robust, its designed to survive a autoclave or antarctica.


They contain a corrosive reagent, which is lithium thinoyl chloride. Its like sulfuric acid tantalum capacitors but for batteries.


I suspect that basically they use these for medical. People want cheap medical and its driven down to a cost because whos paying for that stuff anyway, its not like you can't pay in a civil society. Medical devices are often extremely cheap (one use), i.e. a single use surgical related device. I suspect this battery was built to a cost.

I remember a fair sized metal drum arriving, addressed to me, in the lab one morning, much to the mirth of the other engineers. It turned out to be a Lithium Thionyl Chloride cell sample that I had requested from Tadiran as a memory backup in a military radio prototype. The drum was full to the brim with Vermiculite with the little (approx 2/3 AA) cell wedged in the middle! This was back in the early '80s though.

[Siwastaja]

They try, yeah thats hilarious! 10 or 100 lipos, is the limit on a whim?
Well, dont tie your life to smart phones, tablets etc or make special bissniss traveler rides to they can die on their own.
What about a fire proof box on every flight where travelers are required to place the battery before flight? Is that to much of a safety requirement?

There is a limit, yes.  100Wh per battery.  Up to two spares per device carried.  And then there's the overall 10kg weight allowance.

Presumably this limit has been set by experiment, a 100Wh battery fire can be extinguished on board the aircraft or propagation of the fire is not so rapid as to prevent the aircraft from landing.

And AFAIK, there have been zero accidents, and zero seriously close calls (by all means correct me if wrong). (By "accident" I mean something endangering all of the lives on board. Not counting e.g. a case where your phone sets on fire causes some burns on another 1-2 passengers; that can happen in a bus or on the street, so we would need total ban of everything, everywhere!)

The limit is working as intended; small fires that are easy to detect and contain early are not of a huge concern. Since consumer li-ion batteries such as used in phones or laptops very rarely set on fire, it's a very low-risk, medium consequence problem, allowing people to carry their mobile phones and laptops is well worth it. (Very low risk but high consequence; or medium risk, medium consequence problems would need different thinking).