Surprising Safety Flaws in Lithium-ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries have caught fire in confined spaces, and some people believe they may have caused one or more disastrous dive boat fires. They can catch fire if they have been dropped or impacted in some way, or even if they are plugged into a charger with a similar connection but was not designed for those specific batteries.

The average American is said to have nine devices powered by lithium-ion batteries, and 10 billion batteries are manufactured every year. And some, cheaply manufactured, are dangerous.

A company called Lumafield has used X-ray technology for a close look at the inner construction of a wide variety of branded and non-branded batteries available. They examined 100 of each of 10 different brands.

Three brands scanned were from original equipment manufacturers, three brands were rewrapped with own-branding, and four brands were low-cost or counterfeit from Internet resellers such as Amazon.

They expected the high-end batteries to be of superior construction, but what surprised the researchers was just how much worse the low-end, non-branded ones were.

Lithium batteries have electrodes separated by an insulating layer. Eight percent had a hazardous structural defect in which the cathode overhung the anode. All the cheap batteries had that defect, but some were worse than others. Not only that, but these defects become worse with multiple charging and discharging, resulting in catastrophic failure.

The takeaway is that cheap lithium-ion batteries are often without safety features and are the result of poor quality control. If you're toting dive and camera equipment with lithium-ion batteries, stick with reputable brands and those supplied with the original equipment. They'll cost you a few more dollars, but you'll avoid a significant risk to your safe travels.

The results of these tests are available in a Lumafield Report. https://tinyurl.com/bddvnb22