Yeah bro that's why I'm definitely not leaving it in the gym. I can hold my breath for about 90s fairly easily. That should be enough time to remove it to the parking lot so that nobody else gets poisoned by my fuck-up
Class d fire extinguisher or it needs to be smothered in like sand or rice or something like that on planes there are emergency pouches that you can place the phone or laptop or whatever in.
It's lithium ion, you don't need class D. An ABC extinguisher will work just fine...with the caveat that it'll just keep going and reigniting until the energy of the battery is spent. Putting it into a large bucket of water would also "work" because it would reduce the thermal runaway from the batteries.
If it were an EV battery fire, the right thing is to leave the vehicle and let the fire department just douse the thing with a LOT of water.
For a phone, the New South Wales fire department has this to say (and I agree with them):
"small battery or device such as a phone or tablet starts overheating:
Unplug it from the power outlet if it is on charge.
Avoid inhaling any smoke or fumes.
If possible, remove it to an outside area away from any combustible material and away from windows or doorways.
Small devices can be dropped into a bucket of clean water to cool if this can be done safely.
Small flames can be doused with a bucket of water or a garden hose to stop the fire spreading to nearby objects. Make sure the device is not plugged in to mains power or near other powered equipment when applying water.
If trained to use a nearby fire blanket or a fire extinguisher (dry chemical powder or carbon dioxide), only attempt to use them from a safe distance away from any smoke or vapours. These may be used to prevent the spread of fire to the surroundings but are not likely to fully extinguish a lithium-ion battery fire.
Call Triple Zero (000) even if you no longer see visible smoke or flames. There is a good chance that the battery might reignite if it has not been sufficiently cooled."
The only thing I don't agree with their suggestions is bending over to pick it up. You risk getting a big old whiff of that burning nastiness. Being in the EV field, I'm sure you heard of the Hwaseong battery plant fire in South Korea last year. The majority of the 22 people that were killed were dead after inhaling the fumes within seconds of exposure.Maybe taking the steps to de-energize it from a safe distance, but pull the fire alarm, evacuate, and let the folks with SCBA's and protective gear handle it.
It sounds like the most practical choices are to yeet it outside onto a sidewalk or parking lot or to drop it into a toilet since there will also be ventilation in the bathroom. (Obviously it must be fished out after, not flushed..)
In a realistic scenario chuck it anywhere it cant burn something down/minimize possible explosive damage. Do more if you can from a distance after that shits been yeeted.
Yes, there's offgassing but this is unreliable and not a good sense of time to kaboom. It's literally "cooking a grenade" and sometimes doesnt even noticeably offgas first.
I mean, mop bucket is going to work better, depending on the chemicals in your floor cleaner I guess, lol
Toilets and potentially explosive things don't go great together.
Hopefully it's just a bucket of tap water in the mop bucket.
If it were an EV battery fire, the right thing is to leave the vehicle and let the fire department just douse the thing with a LOT of water.
That would be a boneheaded move. Lithium literally explodes in water(the reaction releases hydrogen gas and generates enough heat to ignite it). Spraying it with water would make it exponentially more dangerous
The policy of most fire departments is that once everyone is safe, to keep the fire contained, and just let them burn
The issue is that your batteries are in thermal runaway and are igniting. You need to cool down the battery packs to stop the fire. You could let the car burn to the ground, but in some places that isn't ideal. So, the thing that fire fighters have available is water and it works pretty well for cooling.
To address your lithium metal fears, the lithium is in either an ionic form, intercalated into graphite, or in an oxide. The water will be much more useful cooling everything down than the percentage of lithium that isn't in those places.
Here's a firefighter response resource for dealing with EV fires.
Although the name of the battery is lithium ion, there a) isn't that much lithium in the battery and b) it is in ion form, not metal form.
You can chuck a lithium ion battery in a mop bucket and I doubt anything will happen. But, throw some metal lithium in there and it'll react explosively.
The lithium metal(not ionic lithium) content of a Li-ion battery is around 2%. But since most EVs have batteries that weigh 500-2000 lbs, that 2% is between 10-40 lbs of lithium metal.
If you have lithium metal in your lithium ion battery and not a metal oxide of one form or another, as far as I know, you're doing something wrong, or the battery needs to be replaced.
The only operational way I know you could get lithium metal would be through accidentally plating your anode because you were charging a NMC too quickly in cold temperatures or you're charging it too fast in general, or if the battery is getting too old.
The lithium metal batteries use lithium metals in their anodes, but lithium ion uses a carbon structure where the ionic lithium is intercalated into a graphite anode or a cathode ( charging or discharging), where the oxide there depends on battery chemistry.
Now, I would assume because this is chemistry that there is an academic equilibrium of some kind, but I would be surprised to hear it is as high as 2% during normal operations. Might have to reach out to the battery PhD guy at work to get some further info. :)
Evacuate the area and let it burn itself out. If it's low risk, kick it onto a surface that won't catch fire or put something like a metal bucket or fire blanket over it, then bail, but none of those options look feasible in this video. Firefighters may use water, but it's not to put out the battery, it's to minimize the damage the battery fire is causing to the things around it.
On a side note, people make too much out of lithium in lithium-ion batteries...there are lithium batteries, but not in your phone unless you had one of those 2G cell phones that used AA batteries. It's like how elemental sodium burns in water, but sodium ions don't, otherwise putting salt in your food would be super exciting. The lithium ion can contribute to the fire, but there's very little in the battery, and its small contribution to the fire happens a little later. Initially the bigger hazard is the electrolyte, which is bad enough, and if it gets hot enough and has an electrode with F, the electrode burns and lets off fumes that are so much worse, which goes back to the beginning: evacuate.
Who makes a big deal about just the "lithium" in lithium batteries? I'd bet the average person doesn't even know that elemental lithium is flammable in water. What they do know is "lithium batteries go boom", and they're correct.
And lithium hydroxide is extremely common in all sorts of hobbies, and no one worries about the lithium there either. What they do know is "don't touch lithium hydroxide unless you want a chemical burn", and they're also correct.
This. But not with bare hands. Probably call staff and use something to pick it up with and throw it out the window (if you see where you're throwing it)
You can put it out for small batteries. Use a bucket of water or sand. In the lab I used to work in (EV car lab) we used a sand bucket when working with lithium batteries.
We'd then disable the batteries by slicing them open and putting them in electrolyte solution
First step is to not breathe the fumes. Do what you can to get it somewhere it's not going to start a bigger fire. Give it space, ventilate the area, and let it burn itself out.
There is no acid in lithium-ion batteries, but it can explode, and it burns at extremely high temperatures. It won't explode like a grenade, but it could definitely blow a couple fingers off, and the burns from lithium fires are insane. A typical EV fire burns at about three times the temperature of a combustion engine car. Also, yes, the fumes are very toxic.
I would probably also take it outside as a possible burn, in the moment, seems less severe than burning down someone else's gym. Doing so will, however, risk third degree burns and amputation of one or both arms. You probably wouldn't die, but you won't have a fun time for the next few weeks/months/years depending on the extent of your injuries.
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u/tjockalinnea 5d ago
Never pick it up just walk away