Re: battery fire

On 19/01/2025 15:24, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 1/19/25 14:09, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 10:38:17 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

 From direct experience, I know it is quite stable in dry air.
It tarnishes in seconds in air with normal humidity levels,
and yes, it reacts violently with water.

>
Depends. Yes, violently if confined, but merely vigorously if allowed
to skate around on the surface expelling energy.

 Have you actually seen it?

Yes. Lithium is quite tame compared to any of the other alkali metals which invariably self ignite with really rather small fragments.
There is a lithium metal battery with potentially an order of magnitude higher energy density than current Lithium ion batteries but it is proving hard to tame. Has a nasty habit of forming dendrites and shorting itself out internally with all the usual problems...
They may yet perfect it as a technology.

I have. (It was thick foil, not a lump, and it was not confined.)
 Violent is the word that's fitting.

I'd go for vigorous. It melts fairly easily, floats and doesn't self ignite unless there is quite a decent chunk of it - more than pea sized.
Sodium is violent, melts and is self igniting at about pea size.
Potassium is close to explosive so best done with a very small piece.
Rubidium is explosively fast and memorable even for a tiny shard.
--
Martin Brown