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Right. Anybody with piles of batteries like that needs a very powerful sprinkler system. Lithium battery fires at recycling centers have become a major problem
by Animats 1y ago
Right.
Anybody with piles of batteries like that needs a very powerful sprinkler system. Lithium battery fires at recycling centers have become a major problem, even with only a few lithium batteries. Search "lithium battery recycling fire".
There are deluge systems that can cope with battery fires. They're simple, but need a big water supply.
- jeffbee 1y agoSeems like a waste of good water. Anyone with that quantity of batteries should have a large pile of sand on hand, a pre-placed giant hole in the ground, and a bulldozer to manage the job.
- cyberax 1y agoOne of the recycling steps is dissolving the lithium in water. So they might just as well take a burning battery and just chuck it into the shredder, and then mix the burning slurry with water. Contrary to the popular belief, lithium batteries do NOT contain enough oxygen to just keep self-burning. Most of the lithium-ion pyrotechnics is just from good old atmospheric oxygen, which oxidizes the organic electrolyte. What lithium-ion batteries have is the ignition source that basically keeps going on and on. So once you extinguish the burning electrolyte, it just keeps reigniting.
- jeffbee 1y agoWell, the point of the sand would be to stop the burning pile from spewing HF, which could be pretty annoying.
- kragen 1y agoThat's interesting! I didn't realize that lithium-ion batteries were full of lithium hexafluorophosphate, or that it hydrolyzed to form HF at 70° in the presence of water. Thanks!
- wkat4242 1y agoYeah great idea, letting the fire rage in the ground (it provides its own oxygen) and leeching a lot of chemical waste products into the ground water :)
- wkat4242 1y agoWe don't stick chemical waste in the ground anymore, just saying :)
- zaphar 1y agoIt was my understanding that battery fires don't go out because they are basically self fueling. You would be better served having a way to contain it until it burned itself out.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agoit's self catalyzing, but only above a certain temperature. if you dump enough water on it, it goes out
- SoftTalker 1y agoThis is why this sort of industry usually ends up in places like Pakistan and Bangladesh. They’re desperate for work and don’t worry about safety or environmental pollution.