Company developing lithium-ion batteries that won’t explode, catch fire

SAN DIEGO—
S. Lithium Energy headquarters outside San Diego, president and Union
Founder Jiang Fan opened the lock door of the company\'s battery-Test room.
Here, the crouching machines pierce the batteries with nails, crush them with weight, and inject so much voltage into them while charging that they expand like mini balloons.
This abuse can cause an explosion or fire in a typical lithiumion batteries.
However, lithium batteries in the United States will not explode or ignite.
They are deformed but harmless.
The small company mainly supplies batteries to the United States. S.
The military believes it has come up with technology to improve the safety of rechargeable lithiumion batteries —
More and more power supplies for electronic devices, from mobile phones to laptops to electric cars to household energy storage devices.
The technology at the core of brand security is complex and Fan doesn\'t give much detail.
But the core of security comes from the United States. S.
Department of Energy project delivery high-
Energy electric vehicle batteries that do not catch fire in a collision, have been applied to wearable bullets
Safety battery for soldiers.
\"What we did was put a fuse inside the battery, so when something went wrong inside, our fuse plugged in and cut off the current and the battery was safe,\" Fan said . \" He holds a doctorate in solid chemistry from Arizona State University.
Reports of lithium are rare.
Ion battery explosion has made headlines for years
The latest is Samsung\'s Galaxy Note 7.
The South Korean electronics giant spent $5.
3 billion recall of flagship smartphone, which became notorious at the airport as passengers have been hearing announcements that Note 7 is not allowed to open for monthsboard.
S. Lithium has delivered more than 20,000 batteries to Defense Department customers since 2011, and recently launched a new company called Amionx to commercialize security core technologies.
2 patents have been issued and 4 patents have been pending.
It wants to use this technology for lithium-
Ion batteries worldwide
The company is not alone in the process of making lithium.
Safer ion batteries
Some startups and research labs are working on new technologies.
Including the use of solid materials that are less volatile than those used in lithium todayion batteries.
But the next shift
It will probably take a few more years.
Lithium USA says the technology can be rolled out on existing battery lines in less than six months without significantly increasing the cost of capital equipment or bill of materials.
Fan said the company has incorporated the technology into its battery manufacturing operations for its military customers.
\"People who don\'t know this may be skeptical at first,\" Fan said . \".
\"But when they see our facilities, we have the same facilities as they do.
This is not a lab project.
It is the real scale and has been verified by the United States. S. military.
\"There may be some progress in lithium in the United States, said Brian Molin, president of Dreamweaver International, a provider of advanced battery technology.
\"This concept does not go deep into their technology, but reads patents,\" said Molin, a board member of the state-of-the-art technology battery Alliance, a trading group focused on the technology of electro-chemical energy storage.
\"I don\'t know if the implementation works.
But the concept works.
Morin added that lithium in the United States has taken a new path in improving battery safety.
\"No other 10 people are trying to do the same thing,\" he said . \".
\"So if they do, they have a unique approach.
Sony first brought lithium to market in 1991
According to the Tirias study, ion batteries have a significant advantage over nickel-cadmium in terms of energy density, rapid charging and cost.
However, there is a potential fire risk in their chemistry and cell structure, estimated between one in a million and one in 50 million.
In order to reduce the risk, advanced battery management software has been used to prevent excessive charging and detection of problems.
For increased safety, the battery pack sometimes comes with flame retardant chemicals and hardened housing
Although they will affect the performance.
These steps are not always valid.
In the Boeing 2013, after the battery caught fire, Boeing was forced to stop all 787 dream planes for several months.
In 2006, millions of laptops were powered by Sony lithium.
Ion batteries were recalled after a fire was reported.
Recently, a charging hovercraft was linked to a house fire in Pennsylvania that killed three people. year-old girl.
A passenger flying from Beijing to Australia reported that her headphones suddenly lit flames before being put out by the crew.
Many of these failures are blamed on manufacturing defects.
\"High quality cells are always better,\" said James Kaschmitter.
Founder SpectraPower PolyStor and current research.
\"The reason why Vape cigarettes and hoverboards fall off is that they are cheap-made cells.
\"The market is growing in part because of the surge in the number of electric vehicles and smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
Combined Market Research forecast, lithium
The ion battery market will grow from $30 billion in 2015 to more than $77 billion in 2024.
Tesla is currently building a battery plant called the Gigabit plant in Nevada, which is estimated to eventually produce enough batteries to power 500,000 Tesla cars.
In addition, the pressure to get more power from mobile video and other energy batteries is also increasing --
Hungry?
\"As people try to put more energy into the cells, they will eventually make a compromise,\" Morin said . \".
\"Every one is just a small compromise in terms of security, but that makes the whole system less robust.
Therefore, the level of manufacturing defects (batteries) that can be withstand is low.
\"You can write it on manufacturing defects and try to avoid them, but what a lot of people are trying to do is build a more powerful system that is less sensitive to manufacturing defects.