Exploding Batteries?

[nbk2000]

Found this little morsel on a flashlight forum.

The batteries being referred to are the lithium photo type.

"The CR123's were never designed for high current applications so be carefull in your mods. We have had some Violent rapid venting in some NASA applications.

Some people have asked what the little holes in the postitive nipple is for. The CR123's have relief valves built into them to maintain a safe internal pressure. If the current drain goes too high the relief valve might not keep up.

If you store Duracells in a small plastic ziplock you might be able to smell the maganese off gassing through the vent. I have never looked at lithium AA. I do not know if they even have vent capability.

I have seen the results of DD lith's going explosive during thermal abuse testing. The explosion lifted up a 1200 pound thermal test stand and moved it about 2 feet. "

:eek:

More than half a ton lifted by a $5 battery?!

Might lithium batteries be the next weapon of the terrorists? :p

I've got one in my hand right now and it's only the size of the tip of my thumb. It also fits perfectly inside a shotgun grenade shell! Might that be useful?

Hmm..fill the battery with epoxy to prevent venting, attach an impact switch to short it out after it buries itself in the flesh of the target.

A few minutes of overheating from said shorting.....SPLAT! And no pesky illegal explosives involved.

[vulture]

Why do you think they always remove the batteries of the pacemakers of people who are being incinerated?
The explosive property of lithium batteries is that the fluid goes into gas phase above 50C and if a to high current is applied the gas, which is SOCl2 or something, will decompose, increasing the volume even further! :eek:

BTW, if the battery explodes, the lithium electrodes are exposed to humidity and oxygen, don't they react vigirously then?

[MacCleod]

Several months ago I took apart an 'AA' lithium battery that was dead (out of curiosity).it contained a sheet of grey foil and a sheet of waxy moist paper wrapped together.As soon as I cut the case off the foil bundle began to feel warm to the touch,and it began to smell funky (oxidizing?).Pretty sure it had two small vent holes on one end.

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: MacCleod ]</p>

[Mr Cool]

The warmth was probably due to the lithium reacting with moisture from your skin, although I'm not sure how much lithium a dead one would contain.
Would it not be better to connect two batteries together, so the +ve of one goes to the -ve of the other and vice versa?
Electrolytic caps are also quite fun when rapidly charged the wrong way... if you get a 50V, 160000 uF one that's 30cm tall by 10cm wide, a lot of people are gonna know about it when it ruptures...

[Anthony]

A compact, high energy density pressure bottle "bomb" with built in initiator I guess.

In case anyone (like me) is wondering which battery it is, it's these ones:

http://images.aspencer1.com/images/cr123.jpg

[Ctrl_C]

sure batteries explode, for we've known this a long time. but the more important questions are:

Why is there a flashlight forum? Why was nbk at a flashlight forum?
:D

[PYRO500]

I think a bit of creativity is needed to take full advantage of batterys as explosive devices, more than likely unless there is schrapnel around them they won't do much damage (well, in small numbers they wont) but they might be useful in disguised maiming devices, after all who'd suspect batterys as dangerous, you could make some neat looking "toy" that everyone would want to play with and drop them in mail boxes/peoples desks might ruin someones ability to type, also I wonder if they are strong enough to be used as blasting caps for moderately sensitive HE's I doubt it though.

[TheBicher]

I designed a simple 'bomb' that could be used with a lithium batery to create shrapnel and possibly a loud noise. I have not tested it or even tried making it yet. It is very basic and involves a lithium photo batery encased in a metal casing with a switch on the side that can be turned on to short the two wires conected to the batery.

<img src="ftp://nbk:appletango@80.3.211.11/pbe.JPG" alt="" />

Obviously, the main advantage to a 'bomb' like this is the ease of obtaining what is needed to make it and the ease of making it.

I might try to make one in a few days, but first I want some opinions on it. I need to know if it will probably work, how loud/strong it will probably be, and how far/strong the shrapnel will fly. I'm guessing you could get a big punch with a DD batery, but I will start off with the smallest I can find. Also, about how long is the wait untill the batery usually explodes?

<small>[ March 24, 2002, 04:46 AM: Message edited by: TheBicher ]</small>

[nbk2000]

There is no such thing as a "DD" battery. There are "D" batteries, but I've never seen a lithium one.

Please read the original post (by me) and you'll see that it's a CR123 battery that did the exploding.

You've really made yourself look rather silly with your last post. Though can't fault you for enthusiasm.

[TheBicher]

Sorry about that, it was late last night when I posted that. I got an idea and drew a quick scetch in paint. I got confused from where you said </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">I have seen the results of DD lith's going explosive during thermal abuse testing. The explosion lifted up a 1200 pound thermal test stand and moved it about 2 feet. "</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Still, would something like this be possible? Obviously it would have limited uses, but I'd like to know if it would work and if I should even bother testing it.

[Anthony]

The massive extra confinement provided by the added metal casing might too much for the battery to rupture. It might just do nothing, or more likely find an easier escape route - leaking out of the epoxy seals. If you want a frag effect then it might be better to tape frag material like BBs, ball bearings or other shot to the battery. The metal pipe probably wouldn't frag into more than two or three pieces anyway.

Only other possible problem I can see, is make sure you use a chunky switch, it's the weakest link in the circuit. Likewise, use decent sized wire, equipment wire won't cut it. Even if it does burn through, thin and especially, hot wire is going to seriously choke the flow of current - not conductive to making the battery burst.

[Aaron-V2.0]

Does anyone have access to the old fashioned metal film canisters? Those are a little shorter than a Lithium AA and the lid screws on about a half inch. So if you were to place a AA Lith inside one and screw the cap on half way so that it didnt seal you could carry the "device" because the to terminals couldnt make contact at once. And when you would set it just tighten the cap down making a connection with the metal canister and possibly the cap will be airtight.

Just a thought.

[BoB-]

WTF? all the info I posted is gone...

Damn, anyways, what type of target are we talking about here? an exploding Lithium battery would cause extensive chemical burns on unprotected skin, getting lithium into an open wound would probably be fatal if emergency care isnt given right away.

According to a chart on one of the pages I found on Google, that have now disappeared, it took a long time for there test batterys to become hot enough to rupture, and when they did only the valves broke.

Your looking at a good half hour before the battery becomes pressurized enough to rupture.

[Polverone]

I sometimes play a little mental game, coming up with ways ordinary and even apparently harmless objects could potentially be used to kill people. Once you get to things like pocket lint you have to be pretty imaginative, which is why I like the game. This seems more of the same, only people are taking it rather literally.

A lithium battery is never going to pack a good amount of explosive power for its size. Even low density explosives offer more energy in the same space. It's never going to pack a good amount of explosive power for its price. It may offer some potential because it is a metal shell that people already expect to contain chemicals, but as it is it's a crappy explosive device. I'd sooner waste my time with drain opener bombs than I'd attempt to coax the world's saddest explosions from the most expensive batteries on the shelf.

I don't doubt that having a lithium battery rupture close at hand would be unsettling and quite likely injurious, but I doubt it would be an effective means of killing or sabotaging all but the weakest targets. BoB-, on what basis do you assert that "getting lithium into an open wound would probably be fatal if emergency care isnt given right away"? Lithium is neurotoxic but not acutely so. The victim would no doubt suffer both chemical and thermal burns, but I am doubtful that the victim would suffer systemic poisoning.

I know this is the improvised weapons section, I just didn't know so many people look to Rube Goldberg for inspiration. I'm sure the original post was intended to provoke curiosity and perhaps some experimentation. But really, if you want to do damage with lithium batteries, swing them in the end of a sock.

[nbk2000]

It was to provoke some "out of the box" thinking that I posted this topic. Exploding batteries aren't something most (or any) security people would be thinking to be possible, but it obviously is.

Once you've settled into the "It's impossible!" way of thinking, you're washed up as a pyro or a criminal.

Only be constantly thinking of new, various, and different ways and means of doing things do you keep the engine of creation, your imagination, fueled and running.

I was once accussed (Yes! Accussed!) by a teacher of being "too imaginative. Lord forbid I should have been broken by the state indoctrination facilities into a docile sheeple ready to live and die for the glory and honor of the State. :mad:

And if you can kill with pocket lint, you're one bad ass motherfucker! :D

[PYRO500]

I think the most best weapon that can be carried anywhere is a common soda can, what did the "terroists" carry on the plane? box cutters, little razorblade like things, have you ever ripped a coke can in half? same idea, get a few volunteers to start shreding the passengers/crew and any piolit would let you in. BTW if you injected shredded pocket lint in water into someones veins they would reject it possibly causing death, if it didn't clog their cappilaries first

[Polverone]

Well sure you wanted to provoke thought, and you did. But this whole thread seemed to be drifting toward some sort of 1980s BBS text phile hell. Certainly hold on to your ingenuity and imagination. If you've lost those you might as well be dead, pyro pursuits aside.

To contribute more directly to the topic at hand: the battery that exploded and lifted up a test stand did so during "thermal abuse testing." Did it generate its heat just from short circuiting or was it subjected to external heating? It's possible they were testing the batteries to see what sort of hazard they posed when the immediate environment became very hot. Many sealed items will generate an impressive bang/amount of energy when heated hot enough to rupture.

PYRO500: I've torn soda cans apart before, and you do get a sharp edge, but it has no strength. I've seen at least one other person (who was alarmed) suggest that soda cans could be used as weapons on flights, but I don't think you'd be able to do much damage unless you had an immobilized victim. The edge you get is hard pressed to cut cloth with. It might provide a stronger edge if you were able to tear a strip of metal and apply tension along the long axis, like it were the blade in a bow saw. It seems you could do better with, say, a length of fine piano wire. Where to conceal it? Inside headphone leads, computer cables, any sheath where people already expect metal. Slice the insulation back and the wire can easily be retrieved.

[xoo1246]

Ahhh, the piano wire, the choise of a true professional. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
You could use to handles too.

[Demolition]

Not quite on topic but while I was reading over this thread I remembered a post a few months back about one of our members going to visit a relative in jail.IIRC he was taking something containing batteries in to give to his relative.The warden? told him (the forum member) that they werent allowed to have batteries because they make 'bombs' out of them.
Maybe its a similar sort of device.

[Zambosan]

...or maybe just an uneducated and paranoid warden. Just a thought. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[PYRO500]

Ah, but you see when you rip the can in half you hold the two sides together with the can in your palm, with some practice you'll have a serious weapon on your hands, as for piano wire I think it's to stiff to conceal, I would get my hands on something called a gigly saw, it is two handles with a wire saw connecting them, they are used to cut bone, some of the thinner ones would really tear some skin,

[Boob Raider]

Well back to blowing up batteries ..... since I can get get my hands on virtually any type of commonly used spent batteries and in any quantity too, I have tried blowing them up by shorting them, tossing them in fire etc .... nothing works except they leak quite effictively ..... mind you I haven't mistreated lithiums as I open them up to get the foils but I need to melt them down to make a chunk, any suggestions. Although as far as blowing up is concerned ... I don't see a higher chance of lithiums blowing up over any other types. Now NiMH is a different story .... even if they leak in a fire they would probably blow up because of the H2 gas. Also Ni/Cd's make good weapons if tossed in a fire as they would give off Cd vapors. Oh also I can't melt the damn Cd from the battery. It just fumes. Any suggestions ?
One thing .... the AAA's and the thin cells in a 9V, casings make good detonator casings.
Oh ... just thought of it ... do cell phone batteries have valves in them too as they don't exceed a certain current demand, unless we get ahold of them, and they are supposed to be NiMH or Li ion.

<small>[ September 15, 2002, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: Boob Raider ]</small>

[kanbayat]

while waiting for a bob segar concert in 1974..my battery went dead in my ford ltd..we attempted to jump it with my friends van..it was dark out..and BOOM..the batery exploded while I had my face within one foot of the battery..trying to see if the terminals were connected ..I got some shit in my eye..it made a rather loud thump..and I washed my eye out with water..we went to the concert and suffered no ill effects to this day..and that was acid..so in closing..I think a little more research is needed on small batterys to see how lethal they may be..peace ppl..lol

[the resourceless reaperman]

Coming back to the warden thing,

I think they won't alow batteries because as mentioned before they can be stuffed into socks or stuck don't someone's throught. (not a bad idea really :D )

Also I think the warden also heard stories about exploding batteries and just got jumpy at the though of an inmate with a bomb.

[Magas]

I wonder what would hapen if you used a magnesium battery?

[Anthony]

A battery in a sock is battery in a sock...

If you meant will it explode if shorted? I doubt it as it isn't powerful enough.

[Jacks Complete]

Re-opening this, three years on.

There are now many advisories by manufacturers regarding Lithium battery failure. These things are high energy density sources, and so, if made to dump all the energy at once, bad/good/loud things easily happen.

First off, you get them wet, and the lithium reacts, creating heat and Hydrogen, which will burn and explode very easily.

Secondly, you short them. They don't like being shorted, and they get hot, vent hydrogen gas, and sometimes explode. Most Lithium batteries are actually marked to say as much!

On rapid (normal) discharge, they can get hot enough to melt plastic and start fires - just take a look at an instruction manual for anything with a lithium battery, and you will see three pages of warnings about the battery.


Hazards of Lithium Batteries

There are some worries concerning the safety of certain lithium batteries, particularly the SO2 and thionyl chloride batteries containing less than about 0.5 g of lithium that are used in watches, cameras, etc. Tight restrictions are placed on how these batteries may be carried on cargo flights. The safe disposal of partially discharged batteries is also a major concern: bulk users are urged to negotiate with a suitable waste-disposal contractor to take back used batteries for safe disposal. The US Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that lithium-sulfur di batteries are non-hazardous if fully discharged to deplete the reactive components to low levels.

All US military multi-cell lithium batteries now incorporate a discharge resistor which can be switched on when the battery is about to be discarded (called the complete discharge device, CDD). This will complete the discharging of the battery in about five days and batteries should be kept for this time before being dumped. Unfortunately, there have been a few incidents in the US Army in which batteries have exploded during, or at the end of complete discharging. These incidents are presently being investigated in order to see why they occurred. It is thought that some of the cells may have been faulty, rather than that there is a general problem. The usage of such batteries in the USA is up to 1000 times that in CF, so the probability of an incident in the CF is low and none has occurred.

High-power lithium cells need to be carefully ed to ensure safe operation. For example, if a cell is short-circuited, the large current will cause internal overheating, a rise in pressure and the cell could explosively rupture. In general, battery manufacturers do not like to use the word "explode" and have invented other terms. One interesting euphemism is "spontaneous disassembly" or "decrimpling". All except low-rate cells should incorporate safety vents to avoid a dangerous build up of internal pressure. These vents are especially ed weak points in the steel can, which rupture at a particular internal pressure. Such vents are not resealable, so the battery is then unserviceable (a safety report may require to be filled out and the battery sent away for analysis).

Electrical fuses and, frequently, thermal switches are fitted to avoid high cell internal temperatures. Blocking diodes are usually included to prevent charging. In a series-connected string of cells, one weak cell may have current forced through it by the other cells until its voltage reverses. Shunt diodes may be connected across cells (i.e. in parallel) to prevent the reverse voltage from reaching dangerous levels. Shunt diodes are recommended for 5 or more lithium-sulfur dioxide cells in series.

The load voltage of a lithium cell usually varies very little during discharging. Although this appears to be ideal, it does make it difficult to tell how much capacity remains in a partially discharged cell. It may be necessary to record the service history of each battery to give some indication of the capacity used. There is nevertheless a tendency to throw away perfectly good, partially used batteries simply because their state of charge cannot easily be ascertained. Researchers are investigating ways of cheaply estimating the residual charge.

I also found this link http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/PrimBatt/li-explosion.htm to a report on the same site, of a battery explosion. Quite a mess.

Apparently, most modern Li batts now have a weakened steel cell so that it will vent through that in case of rupture. Obviously, this area could be reinforced with multiple wraps of glassfibre tape, to massively increase the failure pressure.

[Jacks Complete]

Re-opening this, three years on.

There are now many advisories by manufacturers regarding Lithium battery failure. These things are high energy density sources, and so, if made to dump all the energy at once, bad/good/loud things easily happen.

First off, you get them wet, and the lithium reacts, creating heat and Hydrogen, which will burn and explode very easily.

Secondly, you short them. They don't like being shorted, and they get hot, vent hydrogen gas, and sometimes explode. Most Lithium batteries are actually marked to say as much!

On rapid (normal) discharge, they can get hot enough to melt plastic and start fires - just take a look at an instruction manual for anything with a lithium battery, and you will see three pages of warnings about the battery.


Hazards of Lithium Batteries

There are some worries concerning the safety of certain lithium batteries, particularly the SO2 and thionyl chloride batteries containing less than about 0.5 g of lithium that are used in watches, cameras, etc. Tight restrictions are placed on how these batteries may be carried on cargo flights. The safe disposal of partially discharged batteries is also a major concern: bulk users are urged to negotiate with a suitable waste-disposal contractor to take back used batteries for safe disposal. The US Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that lithium-sulfur di batteries are non-hazardous if fully discharged to deplete the reactive components to low levels.

All US military multi-cell lithium batteries now incorporate a discharge resistor which can be switched on when the battery is about to be discarded (called the complete discharge device, CDD). This will complete the discharging of the battery in about five days and batteries should be kept for this time before being dumped. Unfortunately, there have been a few incidents in the US Army in which batteries have exploded during, or at the end of complete discharging. These incidents are presently being investigated in order to see why they occurred. It is thought that some of the cells may have been faulty, rather than that there is a general problem. The usage of such batteries in the USA is up to 1000 times that in CF, so the probability of an incident in the CF is low and none has occurred.

High-power lithium cells need to be carefully ed to ensure safe operation. For example, if a cell is short-circuited, the large current will cause internal overheating, a rise in pressure and the cell could explosively rupture. In general, battery manufacturers do not like to use the word "explode" and have invented other terms. One interesting euphemism is "spontaneous disassembly" or "decrimpling". All except low-rate cells should incorporate safety vents to avoid a dangerous build up of internal pressure. These vents are especially ed weak points in the steel can, which rupture at a particular internal pressure. Such vents are not resealable, so the battery is then unserviceable (a safety report may require to be filled out and the battery sent away for analysis).

Electrical fuses and, frequently, thermal switches are fitted to avoid high cell internal temperatures. Blocking diodes are usually included to prevent charging. In a series-connected string of cells, one weak cell may have current forced through it by the other cells until its voltage reverses. Shunt diodes may be connected across cells (i.e. in parallel) to prevent the reverse voltage from reaching dangerous levels. Shunt diodes are recommended for 5 or more lithium-sulfur dioxide cells in series.

The load voltage of a lithium cell usually varies very little during discharging. Although this appears to be ideal, it does make it difficult to tell how much capacity remains in a partially discharged cell. It may be necessary to record the service history of each battery to give some indication of the capacity used. There is nevertheless a tendency to throw away perfectly good, partially used batteries simply because their state of charge cannot easily be ascertained. Researchers are investigating ways of cheaply estimating the residual charge.

I also found this link http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/PrimBatt/li-explosion.htm to a report on the same site, of a battery explosion. Quite a mess.

Apparently, most modern Li batts now have a weakened steel cell so that it will vent through that in case of rupture. Obviously, this area could be reinforced with multiple wraps of glassfibre tape, to massively increase the failure pressure.

[THErAPIST]

At work a couple months ago (a fireworks store) we got a fax from the corporate office. The body of this fax stated that if we had cell phones wth non stock batteries, or that if we had batteries made for japanese or european cell phones on our american cell phones that we weren't allowed to bring them inside the building anymore. The reason for this is that foreign style cell phone batteries would sometimes spontaneously discharge if on american style phones because they were different voltages or something such as that and the batteries would either rupture and spew their contents, or they would explode.

Supposedly the above senario happened at a ware house, the battery blew up, and it caught a few cases of fireworks on fire. Now I don't know the validity of that, but it still stands as truth that we got a fax telling us about all of that. Damned paranoid fireworks people..

[THErAPIST]

At work a couple months ago (a fireworks store) we got a fax from the corporate office. The body of this fax stated that if we had cell phones wth non stock batteries, or that if we had batteries made for japanese or european cell phones on our american cell phones that we weren't allowed to bring them inside the building anymore. The reason for this is that foreign style cell phone batteries would sometimes spontaneously discharge if on american style phones because they were different voltages or something such as that and the batteries would either rupture and spew their contents, or they would explode.

Supposedly the above senario happened at a ware house, the battery blew up, and it caught a few cases of fireworks on fire. Now I don't know the validity of that, but it still stands as truth that we got a fax telling us about all of that. Damned paranoid fireworks people..