Which Samsung model explodes. Why smartphone batteries “explode” and how to prevent it
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The Korean company Samsung has epically disgraced itself with the new flagship smartphone Galaxy Note 7: all the efforts of the developers seem to have been thrown into abandoning the name Note 6 (this is the sixth generation), and drawing a seven so that the number would be no less than the expected ones September 7 iPhone 7. But it was not possible to design a smartphone so that it would not explode while charging.
History of the problem
History developed rapidly. In August, 35 smartphones exploded in countries where the Note 7 went on sale earlier than others.
On August 30, the company suspended accepting pre-orders for Note 7, explaining this by high demand, but accidentally made a mistake on the numbers. The fact is that at first Samsung cheerfully reported 7,500 Russian pre-orders in the first week, and three weeks later - about 9,000, that is, five times less were ordered in two weeks. In other countries, pre-orders were also suspended.
On September 1, it became known that sales of Note 7 had ceased in 10 countries, and rumors appeared about a large-scale recall campaign: almost all devices sold would be replaced.
On September 2, Samsung officially announced the recall of all smartphones sold. Anyone who ordered a device with prepayment (about 900 people in Russia) can get a full refund.
Why do batteries explode?
All this time, information was released through a number of media outlets that smartphones explode only when using a non-original charger or a non-original cable - this, however, is talk in favor of the poor, because the original device with a cable is usually at home, and in the car, at work and friends use whatever they like. And then, what does “unoriginal” mean? Samsung does not produce chargers and cables itself, but orders them externally. If a cable or charger produced at the same factory says, say, not Samsung, but Sony, is it immediately counterfeit? Actually, this is why manufacturers once agreed to use a standard USB connector so that the chargers would be universal.
Moreover, they are all standard: regular charging produces a voltage of 5V and a current of up to 2A. The current strength at a particular moment in time is determined by the charge controller included in the smartphone chipset. Moreover, a lithium-ion battery usually also has its own controller, which protects the “can” itself, firstly, from overcharging, and secondly, from deep discharge - both are detrimental to a lithium-ion battery. Fast charging uses higher voltage (9 V, 2 A or 9 V, 1.67 A or in some cases 12 V). It is the voltage that is increased, not the current (otherwise a much thicker wire will be required). At the same time, in order not to burn out a regular phone with fast charging, data is exchanged between the charger itself and the phone: roughly speaking, it sends a request: “Do you support fast charging?” - and if it receives a “yes” answer, it turns on the increased voltage , and the controller is already charging the battery with a high current.
In the case of Note 7, for some reason, the charging controller in the smartphone first failed, after which too much charging current was supplied to the battery. At the same time, in the exploded batteries (all cases of explosions are associated with devices from early batches), as they say, there was no built-in controller. Charging with too much current leads to overheating of the battery, which triggers a chain reaction: the electrolyte boils with the release of a large amount of gas, the pressure inside the sealed battery case increases several times in a split second, after which the case explodes and hot gases under pressure escape outside, and parts of the structure batteries or the phone itself are turned into destructive elements - a kind of high-explosive fragmentation bomb is obtained.
Why is a battery explosion dangerous?
An explosion of a lithium battery is extremely dangerous. Firstly, lithium burns at a temperature of 1339 degrees - this is enough even to burn through concrete, and during the explosion, fire drops can be sprayed in different directions, which leads to serious fires and burns.
Secondly, an explosion can occur while talking on the phone: in this case, severe injuries and death are possible. For example, in 2007, fragments of an exploding Motorola phone pierced a Chinese man’s heart, and in the same year, an exploding LG phone tore a Korean man’s lungs and broke his spine, which also led to the death of the victim. There are also known cases of death from rupture of the cervical artery, irreparable loss of limbs, etc.
How to protect yourself from a phone explosion
Lithium battery explosions are the downside of technological progress; giving up on them is like giving up on planes, because they sometimes crash, and going to Vladivostok from Moscow by train.
However, the risk of suffering from an explosion will be much lower if you carry a smartphone in your bag, talk on it through a wireless headset, and display important messages on a smart watch. Headsets and watches, however, also have lithium batteries, but with 10-20 times less capacity than in smartphones. Therefore, even if something happens to them, the consequences will not be fatal.
What happened to the Samsung flagship?
A Korean cafe employee tries to put out a smartphone that caught fire.
Samsung Note 7 was supposed to be the main competitor to the iPhone 7. The media raved about the design, camera and stylus operation. It was even presented a month earlier than the new iPhone and released several weeks before Apple's presentation - Samsung believed that this would help take market share from its competitor. But in the very first week after its release, reports of batteries catching fire began to appear. At the beginning of September, the company decided to recall the devices, and at the end of the month it re-released the Note 7 with a “safe” battery.
But reports of fires continued to arrive. On October 11, Samsung asked stores around the world to sell Note 7, and owners to sell the device and not use it anymore. They can now exchange the Note 7 for another Galaxy model (paying the difference) or get their money back. In Russia, return conditions are clarified by calling the hotline.
How often have phones actually exploded?
Before the recall began, Samsung managed to sell about 2.5 million devices (excluding China), but the battery defect, according to the company, was only 0.1%. That is, the battery could burn out in about 2.5 thousand Note 7. The exact number of fire cases is unknown, but there are definitely more than a hundred of them: as of mid-September, one was known in the USA, in Australia, in Korea and one in Taiwan. But new messages are still popping up.
From the descriptions of the incidents, it is impossible to understand in what cases the smartphone starts to burn. In Florida Note 7 set fire a jeep when it was charging from the cigarette lighter, in Australia the device was almost a room in a hotel - also while charging, in South Carolina a garage burned down completely because of it, a switched off Note 7 started smoking in the breast pocket on a plane flying to Baltimore, in Connecticut a smartphone practically in the hands of a teenager (he suffered minor burns), and in Kentucky, an unplugged Note 7 in his bedroom at night.
What causes the phone to light up in the first place?
The fact is that a smartphone battery is compressed from many layers of electrical conductors. Each layer has a cathode with positively charged ions and an anode with negatively charged ions. On the cathode side there are lithium ions: when the battery is charged, they move from the cathode to the anode, and back again when the battery is used. Between the cathode and the anode there is a thin dielectric plate that does not conduct electric current and prevents the cathode from reacting with the anode.
If the partition between them is destroyed, then the ions will follow a short path - a short circuit will occur. Then a chain reaction will begin: the battery will heat itself up even more, and the electrolyte will release flammable gas. When the reaction gains access to oxygen, a fire or even an explosion will occur. This is the general principle of the process, you can learn more about it.
Why are batteries so vulnerable?
In modern batteries, the thickness of the dielectric is only 20–25 micrometers, which is about three times thinner than a regular sheet of office paper. Firstly, this thin layer can collapse due to external pressure. For example, if you sit on your smartphone, bend it or hit it hard. After the dielectric is destroyed, the cathode and anode will react. The dielectric can also fail due to metal dust left inside after assembly.
The second reason for a short circuit is temperature. Lithium-ion batteries are not designed to operate in cold or hot weather. Due to overheating, the lithium metal in the battery grows into needle-like structures (dendrites), which can destroy the dielectric and create a short circuit.
There are many other reasons for heating: a smartphone is charging in the sun, a third-party charger does not know when to stop supplying current, the chip that turns off charging after 100% does not work, the battery has poor heat dissipation. Lithium-ion batteries have operating temperatures: they charge normally at temperatures from zero to 45 degrees, and operate at temperatures from –20 to 60 degrees. If the temperature is higher or lower, problems begin, and at 100 degrees there are very serious problems.
Why did this happen with the Note 7?
GTA V even has an addition in the form of a new Note 7 weapon capable of destroying opponents
Samsung said the batteries were burning due to a short circuit. Exactly why it happened will be determined by an internal investigation. Employees of the company said that the smartphone was prepared in a hurry in order to make it before the Apple presentation: the start date of sales was moved 10 days earlier, engineers constantly changed specifications and ordered new components, and employees had to sleep at work.
Lithium-ion batteries are considered not the most efficient for modern smartphones. Every year, devices appear with more powerful processors and brighter screens, but there are no fundamental changes in batteries. Manufacturers only have to pack the layers of conductors denser to get more capacity in a thinner package. The Note 7 battery was quite capacious - 3500 milliamp-hours. For comparison, the Note 6 has a 3,000 milliamp-hour battery, while the iPhone 7 has a 2,900 milliamp-hour battery. It's possible that the batteries were unevenly pressurized during the complex manufacturing process, causing them to charge unevenly as well.
What will happen to Samsung?
On the day sales were stopped, the company's shares dropped by 8%, and capitalization decreased by $17 billion. For comparison, in the fourth quarter of 2015 the company had operating income of $5.4 billion. It is unknown how much money Samsung will lose on returning devices.
Do smartphones from other manufacturers burn?
A battery defect is considered rare but dangerous. If defective batteries are put on sale, it only takes a few fire episodes for the company to recall the entire lot. In 2006, Dell and Apple sold about 6 million laptops with Sony batteries because some of them could catch fire. Although the probability of a defect was much lower than in the case of Note 7: 1 in 200,000 instead of 1 in 1000.
Phones have been on fire before. In 2002, a device of an unknown brand wore pants when I sat down on my iPhone 5c. And a student from New Jersey's iPhone 6s caught fire in his shirt pocket, even though it was turned off. A month ago, a construction worker from Ohio suffered serious burns to his leg when his Galaxy S7 Edge began to burn in his pocket, and a few days ago, a young man from Zhengzhou suffered burns and scratches when an iPhone 7 shattered in his hands while filming a video.
What should you do to prevent your smartphone from exploding?
Do not charge your smartphone in hot or sub-zero temperatures. Do not use cables or chargers from other smartphones or third-party manufacturers - especially for fast charging, as this will heat up the battery even more. Stop charging if the smartphone gets very hot (in this case, you should replace the battery or cable). Do not leave charging for a long time if the battery gets hot after 100%. Stop using the device if the body becomes bent or the battery becomes noticeably swollen or deformed. If the recommendations are not followed, the battery may not explode, but the likelihood of failure will increase.
What can you do to make sure it catches fire?
You can pierce the battery with something sharp: the dielectric will collapse - the cathode and anode will react, causing a short circuit. You can leave your phone charging under a heavy stress test and under a desk lamp. But it’s not worth doing either one or the other - it’s impossible to guess what the consequences will be: in one case, the battery will simply smoke and melt the phone, in the other, a jet of flame will shoot out of it.
The problem was corrected in new batches, but many of them burned.
While the world is discussing about the exploding iPhone 7 Plus, we decided to recall the cases of fire of a truly dangerous device – the Samsung Galaxy Note7.
The South Korean company omitted the Note 6 model from its lineup, considering that the number and scale of changes in the new smartphone allows it to “jump” one step. May be, Shouldn't you have angered the gods of arithmetic and logic?
Samsung sold about 2.5 million Galaxy Note7s, but a couple of weeks later launched a recall campaign. Naturally, this was not possible to do quickly, and we hear almost daily news about affected Note7 owners.
It all started almost immediately after the official start of sales.
1. After a fire, the house almost burned down
Schoolteacher Park Soo-Jung was forced to flee her bed when her brand new Galaxy Note7 suddenly burst into flames and filled her bedroom with smoke. The teacher escaped with fear and minor bruises after falling out of bed.
2. Blogger demonstrates a burnt Galaxy Note7
On on your Youtube channel user Ariel Gonzalez posted a video showing a Samsung Galaxy Note7 burning out while charging. Gonzalez is currently negotiating with Samsung for damages.
3. The garage burned down completely along with the Note7
Wesley Hartzog left his smartphone charging in the garage, which eventually burned out completely. According to Wesley, he missed the news that Samsung was recalling its new product due to a battery fire problem.
4. Note7 caused a jeep fire
American Nathan Dornacher left his Galaxy Note7 charging in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. After some time, he heard the alarming barking of a dog, looked outside and found his jeep engulfed in flames.
5. The man was left without pants. It could be even worse
Florida resident Jonathan Strobel suffered second-degree burns when a Samsung Galaxy Note7 exploded in his front pants pocket. Jonathan plans to sue the South Korean company for $15,000.
6. A child was injured by a Note7 fire
A six-year-old boy from Brooklyn suffered minor burns to his hands after a Samsung Galaxy Note7 caught fire in his hands. According to the child’s grandmother, the incident occurred while the grandson was watching a video on a smartphone that was charging.
7. Samsung smartphone damaged MacBook Pro
Chinese man Hui Renjie suffered minor burns to two fingers and damage to his MacBook from which the ill-fated Galaxy Note7 was charged. Interestingly, according to the Chinese user, the device was from a new “safe” batch.
7. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge may also be unsafe
Recently, there was another case of a Samsung smartphone catching fire. This time the cause of the fire was Galaxy S7 Edge. The smartphone caught fire while charging. The owner of the house, Danielle Boutilier, was forced to call the firefighters. According to her, before the fire, the smartphone was constantly overheating. It is not yet clear whether it is a coincidence or all Galaxy S7s are unsafe.
Of course, there are dozens of cases of explosions and fires of the fiery flagship Samsung Galaxy Note7. We have collected those that were widely covered in the press.
The biggest failure in the mobile industry
On September 2, Samsung Mobile President Koh Dong Jin was forced to publicly apologize for the self-igniting Galaxy Note7.
Today, many airlines have called on airplane passengers to limit the use of their Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone. Capitalization of Samsung fell by $22 billion, while analysts note that the company's losses will be even greater. It's not just about the cost of a recall, but also about lost opportunities and company prestige.
MOSCOW, September 2 – RIA Novosti. Last Wednesday, Samsung announced it was suspending sales of its latest phablet, the Galaxy Note 7, which hit shelves in 10 countries on August 19. The main reason, for which the president of the mobile division, Dong Jin Koh, has already apologized, is battery explosions during charging.
Samsung may recall all of its Galaxy Note 7s due to battery problemsSamsung is expected to announce the results of its investigation into the cause of the battery problems, as well as a series of comprehensive measures to address the issue, either this weekend or early next week.Be that as it may, this scourge has plagued lithium-ion batteries for the third decade. And since April of this year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) even introduced a temporary ban on the carriage of Li-ion batteries on passenger flights if they are not installed in any device.
The essence of the problem
The lithium-ion battery, despite all its advantages, is a very capricious element. Its charging takes place according to a complex algorithm and is always controlled by a special microcontroller that constantly monitors the temperature and other parameters of the battery. A lot of restrictions are also imposed on its operation and storage. Such batteries do not tolerate deep discharge, operation at low temperatures and heating. Therefore, almost all devices with them have special controllers that monitor their operation and turn off the battery if its indicators exceed critical values.
However, making a lithium-ion battery safe is not that difficult. However, modern trends towards reducing the size of batteries and their shapes, as well as experiments with chemical composition, each time return developers to their original positions. The main problem is overheating of individual battery cells due to increased temperature or a short circuit inside the cell. An overheating cell can start a chain reaction. And taking into account the fact that the alkaline metal lithium included in batteries is flammable, the consequences can be very sad: sudden swelling, fire or even explosion.
But if controllers monitor the battery at every step, why do they explode? There may be several reasons.
Among the main ones is a manufacturing defect, in which the insulator layer between the cells turns out to be insufficiently thick.
Shocks or physical damage to the battery, as well as simple overheating, are also dangerous. For example, if the battery has received minor damage from a fall from a small height, the user may not notice it, but the condition of the battery may deteriorate. It can fail without even reaching its temperature limit.
The problem can be solved by stricter regulation. But this will lead to higher prices for all products and a slowdown in the introduction of new technologies. Which, in conditions of constant competition, companies simply won’t do. Therefore, consumers will have to come to terms with the fact that isolated cases of fires may continue to occur with products from the most famous brands, such as Apple, Samsung and any others.
However, at the beginning of this year, American physicists from Stanford announced the development of a special fuse for batteries. It consists of nickel nanoparticles embedded in a thin sheet of plastic and graphene and automatically turns off the battery without waiting for the controller to react. Despite its apparent simplicity, the implementation of this development remains questionable, since it will not save batteries in one hundred percent of cases, but will lead to an increase in its cost.
