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Researchers create a battery with built-in fire extinguisher

Such incidents will become a thing of the past with upcoming battery technology
OnePlus One battery explosion
Researchers at Stanford University created a lithium-ion battery that contains a chemical compound which prevents both the fires and explosions that sometimes occur when the battery overheats.

The ill-fated Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was not the first handset to face exploding/burning battery issues, and it will not be the last, at least for a while. In the future, however, if the latest battery technology that researchers at Stanford University have revealed goes into mass production, overheating batteries will no longer ignite or explode.

"We have fabricated a novel “smart” nonwoven electrospun separator with thermal-triggered flame-retardant properties for lithium-ion batteries. The encapsulation of a flame retardant inside a protective polymer shell has prevented direct dissolution of the retardant agent into the electrolyte, which would otherwise have negative effects on battery performance," reads the abstract describing the new technology.

As a direct consequence of the design approach described above, this new battery cannot catch fire. When such a battery overheats, the protective polymer melts, and the flame retardant releases to suppress the combustion of the flammable electrolytes. Sadly, we do not know yet if this technology would ever make it to the market.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2017 01 > Researchers create a battery with built-in fire extinguisher
Codrut Nistor, 2017-01-17 (Update: 2017-01-17)