Where there is smoke, there is fire. But is the smoke detectible?
Image from: https://nypost.com/2023/04/10/7-year-old-and-teen-die-in-nyc-fire-caused-by-e-bike-battery/

Where there is smoke, there is fire. But is the smoke detectible?

On April 10, 2023, a man rode his electric bike home from his job in Manhattan to his home in Queens, NY.? He lived in a walk-up apartment with his five children.? Like normal, he parked his electric bike at the bottom of the stairwell and plugged it into its charger, which was attached by an extension cord to an outlet upstairs.? Some time later, the electric bike caught fire in the vestibule, and immediately traveled up the stairs.? By the time he noticed, it was too late to exit by the stairwell, and he was able to retrieve three of his children and exit by a window.? His 19-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son did not survive the inferno.

It is possible that this scenario could have been averted.? While smoke alarms are mandated in the United States, and it is almost certain that his smoke alarm went off and warned him, there is a problem with lithium-ion battery fires and most smoke alarms.?

Smoke alarms in the United States are either of the photoelectric or ionization types.? Photoelectric detectors are responsive to slow-smoldering fires with 0.4 – 10.0 micron particles and light-colored white/grey smoke.? Ionization smoke detectors are best at detecting fast-flaming fires with smaller particles, 0.01 – 0.4 microns and dark or black smoke.?

Lithium-ion batteries burn differently.? They are designed so that, when pressure builds up inside the battery prior to ignition, the packaging will burst and release a combination of hydrogen, carbon dioxide and organic compounds, none of which are detectible by either type of smoke detector.? This can happen several minutes prior to an actual fire that would emit smoke, especially when the cause of thermal runaway is self-heating of the cell.? And when they do ignite, they tend to emit particles that are too small for photoelectric detectors to pick up, generally between 0.01 – 0.1 microns. ??

So in the scenario above, it is most likely that the battery heated up during charging until self-heating of the battery occurred.? This is when the energy of the battery starts to be released, not due to an internal short circuit, but due to internal chemical reactions such as the dissolution of the SEI layer at the anode and other, relatively slow reactions.? The cell would likely vent, releasing the hydrogen, carbon dioxide and organic chemicals.? This stage would release a chemical smell that would be a warning.? But if it is downstairs, out of the living area, it may go undetected.? Later, the cell would ignite, and in a burst of flames release most of the electrical energy of the cell, igniting the cell and beginning to ignite the materials around them.? If the smoke detector was a photoelectric type, this fire also may go undetected.? Only when the wood and other materials from the stairwell caught fire would the smoke be detectible by a photoelectric-type smoke detector.? At this point, exiting through the stairwell is not an option.?

Did it happen this way?? It’s impossible to tell.? It’s also possible that he ran over a bump, or banged against a car and did damage to the battery that caused it to explode quickly once it was plugged in.? But many batteries do catch fire by self-heating, and they are designed to vent when they do.? If there had been an alarm system that could detect hydrogen, carbon dioxide or the organic vapors, he might have had enough warning to kick the bike into the street, or get all of his family out safely.

For this reason, Soteria has been working with partners to develop an alarm system that is based on detecting those gases, among other early warning signals, and announced last week a request for advanced development partners.? Soteria intends to launch a consumer device to retail outlets and online in 2024, but in an effort to get the devices into as many houses and garages as quickly as possible, we will also license the technology to any partner that will also develop a product based on the technology.? It is our hope that someday, every major battery charger will require this to be in the charger, and in the room where large batteries are charged.

If you’d like to learn more, register to attend our upcoming informational webinar. You can also send me a LinkedIn message, or reach out to Ben Fuller or Abby Zielsdorf, who are leading the project. ?This is an important effort, and we are happy to share the load with any partner who can help.

“smoke alarms are mandated in the United States” - the same principle can be applied to the e-bike in order to save life.

回复

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Brian Morin的更多文章

  • Hot Discharges and Cold Charges

    Hot Discharges and Cold Charges

    An e-bike rider heads up a peak in Arizona. It’s 120 degrees, but it doesn’t matter because he has the power of the…

    11 条评论
  • The Value of Safety

    The Value of Safety

    Today I had a conversation with some very well-meaning battery industry professionals. We got onto how to justify the…

    7 条评论
  • Battery 101: Demonstrations and Education for First Responders

    Battery 101: Demonstrations and Education for First Responders

    A Personal Story Yesterday, I was pitching our company to Kristin Lill at Reflect Ventures, and she asked, “What is the…

    7 条评论
  • Let's Save the Heros

    Let's Save the Heros

    The Heros Monday, June 24th, at an Aricell plant in South Korea, the workers heard some popping noises, and saw smoke…

    7 条评论
  • Something BIG Turned into Something Gigantic!

    Something BIG Turned into Something Gigantic!

    Something BIG In August of 2018, I published an article, “How I Stumbled Into Something BIG: the Founding of the…

    11 条评论
  • Industry Growth and the Safety Education Imperative

    Industry Growth and the Safety Education Imperative

    Back in September of 2011, in Louisville, Kentucky, I attended my first industry conference, the NAATBatt annual…

    2 条评论
  • An Open Innovation Safety Business Model

    An Open Innovation Safety Business Model

    After a very frustrating 2017, my board and I at Dreamweaver made the difficult decision to turn Dreamweaver into a…

    5 条评论
  • Rare but Ferocious

    Rare but Ferocious

    As part of our LithiumSAFE Conference, we held a panel on how to speak about battery safety in the marketplace. The…

    3 条评论
  • LithiumSAFE: An Open Dialogue About Battery Safety

    LithiumSAFE: An Open Dialogue About Battery Safety

    Talking about battery safety is normally a very charged conversation. So much is at stake.

  • Nobody Signed Up for This New Trend

    Nobody Signed Up for This New Trend

    The 23 crew members of the Freemantle Highway had signed up for a thirty-day ride around the Cape of Good Hope and…

    6 条评论

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了