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I never thought that my wireless headphones had enough juice to fill my house with smoke, to burn for 15 minutes, or result in chemical burns to the user.
by sgwizdak 5y ago
I never thought that my wireless headphones had enough juice to fill my house with smoke, to burn for 15 minutes, or result in chemical burns to the user.
- RL_Quine 5y agoThey're made of thermoplastic, practically everything plastic burns except for the few things around which are regulated to be impregnated with fire retardants (children's clothes, furniture, etc). Unless what you're holding is made entirely of metal or ceramic, you can be pretty sure that it is some degree of fire risk, if it contains a battery or not.
- oynqr 5y agoLast time I checked, the energy densities of modern batteries were approaching that of TNT. Which is insanely worrying to me.
- Kliment 5y agoThe energy densities of modern batteries are a couple factors lower than that of gasoline, and much lower than TNT. Gasoline is incredibly energy-dense, but its energy density is comparable to butter. Do you worry about sticks of butter exploding on you? No, you don't. Gasoline is dangerous because it really likes to evaporate and the mixture of gasoline fumes and air ignites at the slightest provocation. Batteries are dangerous because they can go into thermal runaway from an internal short if the barrier between the electrodes fails. The energy density is not what matters here.
- camkego 5y agoTry googling both: "1999 butter fire" "1991 butter fire" Wisconsin and France have had notable butter fires. So I guess even butter fires can be bad news.
- Kliment 5y agoIf you're into foodstuff-related destruction, the other things to search for are "flour explosion" and "molasses disaster"
- Dylan16807 5y agoA lithium ion battery has about 2-3% as much energy per gram as a chocolate bar. The energy density is not what causes safety issues.