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From: Sergey Kubushyn <ksi@koi8.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: battery fire
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2025 07:25:50 -0000 (UTC)
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Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
> On 18/01/2025 9:37 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 17/01/2025 21:42, Martin Brown wrote:
>>>
>>>> Lithium ion battery fires are virtually impossible to put out - you have
>>>> to let them burn out and use boundary cooling on the neighbouring
>>>> modules with copious amounts of water. Looks like this one managed to
>>>> get away from the fire fighters (which isn't supposed to happen).
>>>
>>> We have no problem building large windmills at sea. Why not build the
>>> lithium storage facilities off the coast too? The capital cost would be
>>> higher, but once built they could be maintained in a similar way to
>>> those on land. And if one caught fire, there's plenty of water around to
>>> put the fire out, or at least keep it under control. For even greater
>>> safety - and expense - they could be built as submerged facilities,
>>> where any fire could be dealt with in seconds by opening a valve and
>>> letting sea water flood the building.
>> 
>> I seem to remember from my chemistry lessons that lithium reacts
>> violently with water.  Containing lithium pollution of large areas of
>> the sea in stormy conditions (which is when catastrophic failure is most
>> likely to occur) might be quite difficult.
> 
> It wasn't lithium but sodium. Potassium was even worse. Lithium does 
> react in a similar way, but it schools didn't keep stocks of lithium 
> metal around fifty years ago, and probably still don't.

What that word salad was supposed to mean?

Lithium reacts violently with water. Furtermore, it is lighter than ANY
liquid known to a man so it floats in EVERYTHING you could put on it. But
wait, there is more -- that black crust that it gets covered with in no time
when subjected to air is not oxide but NITRIDE. Unlike sodium and potassium
lithium readily reacts with both oxygen and nitrogen and it burns
spectacularly even in pure nitrogen, without any oxygen present.

> The standard technique for dealing with a lithium battery that has 
> caught fire is to flood it with lots of water. Sea water contains about 
> 0.17 ppm lithium, so lithium pollution isn't going to be a problem.

Ever seen burning lithium? Good luck to extinguish it with ANYTHING.
Especially with lots of water... It looks like you skipped your chemistry
classes at school and have never seen lithium metal yourself. Not just it
reacts violently with water, it FLOATS in ANY liquid, water included. You
can't FLOOD it with water for an obvious reason -- it is impossible.

The standard procedure with lithium fires is to somehow isolate it (protect
as much surrounding objects as possible, maybe push the burning mass to an
open space if possible) and let it burn until nothing left.

Just a month or so ago we had a truck loaded with lithium batteries
overturned and caught fire on a freeway. It took a whole day or two (don't
remember exactly) for our firefighters to push that burning wreck off the
freeway into the desert with a bulldozer. Then it took it almost a week to
burn out.

Pollution is not all that much a problem and pretty harmless. There is white
lithium grease everywhere and nobody died from that :)

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