Lithium Ion batteries under fire

Stan Beer
Thursday, 21 September 2006 21:15

Opinion and Analysis

However, right here and now, Lithium Ion technology is under siege. Under certain circumstances, the technology is subject to overheating in a process called thermal runaway, which occurs when there is a short in the system.

• Announcements

Thermal runaway due to defective batteries is rare. However, when you're talking in quantities of millions the percentage of defects only has to be minute to cause a vendor great damage.

The damage to the reputation of Dell and Apple above all others has been significant. However, the damage to Sony, who supplied the batteries in good faith has been far greater.

As a manufacturer of Lithium Ion batteries - in fact a pioneer of the technology - Sony has been well aware of the dangers in the event of a manufacturing defect.

The possibility of thermal runaway has been well scoped out. It is well known that the presence of Lithium Cobalt Oxide at the cathode of batteries presents a danger in cases of battery defects.

Yet, instead of addressing the problem, Sony seems to have ignored it. There are safer Lithium Ion solutions but they don't provide the same storage power. And when we're on a long haul plane, we demand to see some videos and listen o music.

Until someone really powerful in the portable desktop business comes along and makes a noise, like Microsoft, it is doubtful the issue will be taken more seriously until someone gets seriously hurt. .