13 ms·
Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
- timbit42 4y agoFrom 2021
- sparrish 4y agoJuly 1, 2021
- userbinator 4y ago"When we smothered it with the concrete, we're not 100% sure that this thermal runaway is not continuing," Chief Steffes said. "It is probably continuing and hopefully it is going to consume what is left of the batteries underneath then it will be over. But there is a possiblility that as this continues that it does break through this Portland cement." That sounds more like the fire was isolated or hidden, not actually put out. But at least the cement will provide a considerable barrier. ...of course, the question is then how they will clean up --- 28 tons of cement is not exactly easy to move.
- gtvwill 4y ago10 ton excavator and a 60 ton prime mover... Pretty easy.
- nomel 4y agoThere's a physical kind of easy, and there's a financial kind of easy. I've noticed they're usually at odds with each other.
- turtlebits 4y agoIt's not especially expensive. I paid around $1800 to remove and dump 30 ecology blocks (weigh around 2 tons each). If you do it yourself, a 10 ton excavator will cost around $500 to rent for the day.
- maxbond 4y agoPresumably there will also be significant containment considerations. Once you've busted it open and exposed the material to weathering, you need to have already put some plan in place that will stop it from contaminating the ground water.
- nomel 4y agoPart of the problem is getting the giant, single, mass of cement into pieces resembling an ecology block. And a good portion is toxic, so no breathing while you break it up!
- stavros 4y ago"I'll just put this over here, with the rest of the fire."
- mysterydip 4y agoWonder how long it could go? Could someday we have a Centralia-level event? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire
- azernik 4y agoNot with this depot; there physical scale of geological coal deposits is enormously larger than and warehouse
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Scoundreller 4y agoWouldn’t calcium carbonate be a good and very cheap option here? The heat of a lithium battery fire will lead to a calcination reaction and suck up heat and turn the limestone into cement and co2. The cement and water along with sand might form a concrete-y slurry?
- LadyCailin 4y agoThis is from over a year ago, but it would be very interesting to read a more recent update.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoFrom April of this year: > Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will resume cleanup of hazardous and potentially hazardous substances remaining after the June 29, 2021, lithium battery fire at 900 E. Benton St., Morris, Illinois. The Agency estimates the cleanup will take five to six months. > The building housed more than 500,000 pounds of batteries, including more than 140,000 pounds of lithium batteries https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-resumes-cleanup-hazardous-substances-morris-lithium-battery-fire-site-morris https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-resumes-cleanup-hazardo...
- elihu 4y agoWow, that's a lot. I wonder if the other 360,000 pounds or so were lead acid?
- rhacker 4y agoanyone know if it was lifepo4 chemistry?
- elihu 4y agoI was wondering the same. From the article it sounds like it was just a random assortment of lithium-ion batteries that someone was storing with the intention of turning into a large solar-connected battery, so probably a mix of cell chemistries.
- _wldu 4y agoOff topic... What's the best way to easily recycle these batteries? I normally disassemble my old phones and securely dispose of the chips (for my privacy), but the batteries are glued in with a strong adhesive. Just trying to remove them can start a fire. I think most people just throw the old phones in the trash, but I don't like to do that. It's bad for the environment and potentially dangerous to trash workers. It seems that phone manufacturers should make the batteries easy to remove, replace and recycle. Not sure why they do not do this. Home Depot has drop offs for old batteries, but last time I was there they told me they were for power tool batteries only now.
- evan_ 4y agoMy local waste transfer station has a dropoff for lithium batteries, presumably they send them off to be recycled but who knows.
- cronix 4y agoI take mine to the local dump. They have an electronics recycling drop off, which is free.
- Eleison23 4y agoMy city has a recycling center for household products, but it requires the use of a motor vehicle. I have been unsuccessful in using taxi or ride-sharing services to drop off items. Unfortunately, the inflexible vehicle requirement is a deal breaker for me and many of my neighbors.
- iggldiggl 4y ago> it requires the use of a motor vehicle as in "it's miles away from the next bus stop, so walking is impractical", or as in "if you don't show up in a motor vehicle, we don't let you in"?
- nottorp 4y agoProbably out of town. And even in town, it's one thing to walk to it with a dead phone and another to walk with a dead TV :)
- waitwhatwhoa 4y agoThis was in 2021; it appears the fire was extinguished by July 11 [1], investigated by Vice later that year [2], and seems to still be being cleaned up by US EPA [3]. 1. https://www.ehs.com/2021/07/morris-lithium-battery-fire-highlights-emergency-planning-hazardous-chemical-management/ https://www.ehs.com/2021/07/morris-lithium-battery-fire-high... 2. https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vj73/everyone-thought-the-warehouse-was-abandoned-then-it-caught-fire https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vj73/everyone-thought-the-... 3. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-resumes-cleanup-hazardous-substances-morris-lithium-battery-fire-site-morris https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-resumes-cleanup-hazardo...
- londons_explore 4y agoWhat chemicals are in lithium batteries that are toxic? I was under the impression that while lithium batteries were dangerous due to explosion/flame risk, the actual ingredients weren't particularly toxic?
- natch 4y agoOxidization changes the multiple chemicals into different chemicals so the question would have to be what are those resulting chemicals not in the batteries, but after oxidization. Also, you have the other stuff being stored in the warehouse burning at the same time, and firefighters dumping on who knows what else beyond what was mentioned, and how all those chemicals react with each other with heat to form even more chemicals. A lot going on in this story.
- bri3d 4y agohttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09784-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09784-z Many batteries have LiPF6 electrolytes, so HF is the big one when they combust. And of course the most famous and common battery chemistry is still LiCo - so you've got Lithium salts and Cobalt, which you don't love to see get in ground water. They're not too bad when they don't burn, but once they've burned, all bets are off - there are a lot of nasty byproducts.
- 4y ago
- janef0421 4y agoReminds me of the Chernobyl disaster.
- nomel 4y agoWhy? They don't seem related in any way, beyond there being a hot thing.
- cma 4y agoHe might be thinking of where they poured boron sand on it, or built a graphite topped concrete pad underneath. And then the later concrete encapsulation.
- themitigating 4y agoAnother possibilities is that he's trying to exaggerate the dangers of lithium batteries for political or cultural reasons.
- janef0421 4y agoBecause the heat source was hard to cool down, had to be contained using concrete, and the incident contaminated the surrounding area.
- nomel 4y ago> and the incident contaminated the surrounding area. This is not comparable, besides the words being the same.
- CamperBob2 4y agoOr Derek Lowe's classic "Sand won't save you this time."
- themitigating 4y agoIn what way? It wasn't initially covered up, it didn't spread radiation over large areas of europe, no one died, and the cleanup will be completed within a year or so.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoLithium battery fire cannot be 'put out'- in a normal sense. A fuel tank of petrol needs oxygen to burn, and when you spray foam on it your cut off the oxygen and the fire stops. A battery already contains energy, all the chemicals required for the reaction are already present, and once the energy release starts, sealing it from the environment does not stop the process. Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to be properly dangerous and fire departments make noises about them but offer no solutions. A fire extinguisher large enough for a 500wh battery weighs 12 kilos - most people can barely lift that! We have no traceability in the battery supply chain and there is no 'battery safety box' that I could readilly buy. It is not clear if an average metal furniture would contain it. And the regulator is sleeping on the job.
- hackernewds 4y agoFirefighters struggle lifting 24.5 lbs?
- eru 4y agoFirefighters aren't 'most people'. I'd guess that most people can lift 12kg. But lifting and wielding ain't the same.
- simondotau 4y ago12kg is like a two year old child or a small-to-medium sized dog.
- eru 4y agoYes. 12kg shouldn't be much of a problem for most people, if the weight comes in the shape of a dumbbell and stuff ain't on fire. But wielding a toddler-sized implement awkwardly in front of a fire while you are a bit panicking yourself, might be a struggle for many people. Especially since you probably never practiced this, and you might even have to hold the thing one-handed, so you can aim with the other hand
- gerdesj 4y agoWhy on earth do you move 28 tonnes of cement from southern England to the US to put out a fire! I am of course joking - badly. Portland is in Dorset (UK) and is where the eponymous stuff was first extracted along with stone. This is a novel way to put out fires but a logical one if the temperatures are right. Conc can burn if it's too hot - and it sets/cures with an exothermic reaction. That's why you have to pour it carefully in huge quantities (think dams).
- sbaiddn 4y agoI thought that was funny. Nerdy, but funny. I also am puzzles by the viability of using exothermic cement to smother a rxn
- gerdesj 4y agoPerhaps they had loads of the stuff lying around and found a use for it but conc doesn't work how most people think it does. It is a chemical reaction when you mix and pour it and it does not simply dry out. That's why it works underwater if you are careful to stop currents from winnowing out the cement from the aggregate. It also gives off a lot of heat in volume when curing if you are not careful.
- mnw21cam 4y agoPortland cement isn't called Portland cement because it comes from Portland. It is called that because when set it looks like the stone that could be quarried from Portland. It wasn't originally extracted from Portland.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ohiovr 4y agoChernobyl was extinguished by tons of sand and boron.
- hereyougo2 4y agoIt was thought by some that the core fire was extinguished by a combined effort of helicopters dropping more than 5,000 tonnes (11 million pounds) of sand, lead, clay, and neutron-absorbing boron onto the burning reactor. It is now known that virtually none of these materials reached the core. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
- ohiovr 4y agoSure can't put out a nuclear fire but the effort did do a lot to minimize burning radioactive carbon from getting out beyond the site. Its all they really could do. I was wondering why more cities don't try smothering battery fires with sand.
- prmoustache 4y ago> I was wondering why more cities don't try smothering battery fires with sand. Because it is much more annoying to clean the street afterwards than foam and water.
- ohiovr 4y agoEasier than rebuilding a city block though.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- paulkrush 4y agoSomeone likes green Menards buckets: https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=15436 https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=1543... https://abc7chicago.com/morris-fire-update-battery/10853284/ https://abc7chicago.com/morris-fire-update-battery/10853284/ The first link has a good picture of the packs. Looks like lots of good cells left!
- radium3d 4y agoMight be different for various lithium batteries but here is what Tesla's Emergency Response Guide recommends: USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE. If the battery catches fire, is exposed to high heat, or is generating heat or gases, use large amounts of water to cool the battery. It can take between approximately 3,000-8,000 gallons (11,356-30,283 liters) of water, applied directly to the battery, to fully extinguish and cool down a battery fire; always establish or request additional water supply early. If water is not immediately available, use CO2, dry chemicals, or another typical fire-extinguishing agent to fight the fire until water is available. NOTE: Tesla does not recommend the use of foam on electric vehicles. Apply water directly to the battery. If safety permits, lift or tilt the vehicle for more direct access to the battery (see chapter 2). Water may be applied from a safe distance ONLY if a natural opening (such as a vent or opening from a collision) already exists. Do not open the battery for the purpose of cooling it. Tesla does not recommend placing the vehicle in a large container full of water. The use of a Thermal Imagery Camera or Infrared (TIC or IR) is recommended to monitor battery temperatures during the cooling process. Continue to use water until the battery has reached ambient temperatures or below, indicated by the thermal imagery camera. When utilizing a thermal imaging camera, allow enough time, once the application of water has stopped, to allow for heat within the battery to transfer to the battery enclosure. https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders Source (pg 25): https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Model_3_Emergency_Response_Guide_en.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Model_3_...
- Doxin 4y ago> Tesla does not recommend placing the vehicle in a large container full of water. I wonder why? It's what the fire brigade here has settled on and it seems to be thoroughly effective at avoiding re-ignition.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoCar is totaled.
- 4y ago
- ck2 4y agoIt's a shame LiFePo4 didn't become the standard lower capacity but doesn't burn (well not easily)
- stressed69 4y ago[dead]
- agumonkey 4y agoStupid question, has there been attempts at absorbing heat from fires (to power compressors or fans or anything helping stopping the fire) ?
- guerby 4y agoAt my previous work we had a battery fire when a subcontractor first turned on a brand new large UPS in our building. Firefighters put out the fire by pouring cement over it (after we all evacuated the building). These were lead acid battery.
- rich_sasha 4y agoI'm wondering, in a world where we use LiPo batteries to store seasonal grid level power from renewables (i.e. overproduce from solar in summer and store til winter), how big will the battery facilities be? And how bad would the fire be as a result? It's not immediately obvious to me that these will be hugely safer than nuclear plants. Especially since LiPo battery fires seem to be much more frequent than nuclear plant incidents.
- nottorp 4y ago> where we use LiPo batteries to store seasonal grid level power from renewables Can we build enough LiPo batteries to store energy at that scale? Not so sure.
- rich_sasha 4y agoYeah I'm not sure either but that's the usual comparison point.
- HPsquared 4y agoDepends on the facility design: whether it's possible for the whole place to go up at once, or if it's divided into sections that are isolated from each other. Even individual batteries and cells can be isolated from each other if there's enough space. Space and weight, and firefighting ability are much less of a constraint in these types of facilities than they are in an EV battery.
- rich_sasha 4y agoStill, there's some rate at which these things ignite, the main choice seems to be lots of small fires vs few large ones. Firefightability matters for sure but I'd guess is second order? What's the total expected number of LiPo fires per GW of base load, assuming intermittent renewables and grid storage?