BeerFiles is a sometimes irreverent blog concerning all things to do with IT, technology, people and the media from the point of view of a hard boiled technology journalist and commentator. Stan has been in the IT game for about a quarter of a century. He has seen and written about the rise and fall of more than a few IT players and made many friends, some of whom he has even crossed swords with on occasions. Everything in this blog is purely Stan’s opinion so if you agree, wish to expand upon, correct a post or tell Stan he’s a clueless know nothing, please feel free.

Lithium Ion batteries under scrutiny after Dell, Apple recalls

by Stan Beer

Saturday, 09 September 2006

It has not been a great year for Sony. PlayStation 3 delays and Blu-ray production problems are bad enough. However, exploding notebook batteries and massive product recalls by major manufacturers such as Dell and Apple take the cake. Featured Whitepaper 5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support Not only is Sony going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars paying for more than 6 million replacement batteries but the damge to the company's prestige has been enormous. Korean Air has actually banned the use of all Dell notebooks and Apple iBook and Powerbook laptops in-flight, unless their batteries are removed. So it would probably be fair to assume that Sony is probably not one Dell and Apple's favourite battery suppliers right now. The problem of course has been with the Lithium Ion battery technology used in the Sony battery packs, which under certain circumstances can overheat dangerously in a process called thermal runaway. Basically, what happens is that if Lithium Ion batteries are overcharged or get shorted by a manufacturing fault (as was the case with the Dell and Apple recalls), the cobalt oxide in the battery electrode becomes unstable and can lead to the batteries to overheat and sometimes explode. Some manufacturers of newer generation Lithoum Ion batteries have overcome this problem, sacrificing some of the phenomenal power storage capabilities for safety, by using iron phosphate at the electrode instead of cobalt oxide. However, manufacturers such as Sony persist with the cobalt oxide chemistry because of the superior storage and power capabilities, insisting that the batteries are safe. The problem for Sony, which is a leading supplier of Lithium Ion batteries globally, is that the world is waiting to see if the batch of 6 million batteries it supplied to Dell and Apple is a one-off manufacturing glitch.  Or are there millions of other phones, cameras and notebooks in the marketplace with the potential to give their owners a nasty surprise.{moscomment} Tags See All Tags Apple  Powered By Joomla Tags Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment!

 

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