Exploding Lithium

[onwardsupwards]

Interesting stuff for lithium battery owners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCk0lYB_8c0

[JD]

Ask Dr Harry! It burns hotter than magnesium.

JD

[Ian T]

I'm not professing to be a chemist, though a Lithium Ion battery pack doesn't use pure lithium, as shown in this clip (btw, for a Brainiac clip, there weren't enough boobs). There still needs to be an electrolyte, anode and a cathode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion

As JD said, Li-ion batteries can give you a very bad day. Also, they are subject to aging (like when your mobile phone battery is crap after 3-4 yrs, or when your laptop turns into a 'plug top' limiting use of your computer to within 2m of a powerpoint).

JD: Any word on the battery pack in DocH's scooter on the roof ? 

[JD]

Not sure if it was a scooter batter which shorted, it could have been a torch battery or simular, but there were lithium batteries up there which created quite a show! Them, along with the exploding cylinders, spheres from the Mk15.5 and fuel. Even the diesel tanks caught fire, which Harry described as a flame thrower....
Luckily the trailer did not completely catch, saving the G's of O2 from exploding......

JD