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From: Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: battery fire
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2025 09:10:00 +0000
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On 19/01/2025 15:24, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
> On 1/19/25 14:09, Cursitor Doom wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 10:38:17 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
>> <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

>>>  From direct experience, I know it is quite stable in dry air.
>>> It tarnishes in seconds in air with normal humidity levels,
>>> and yes, it reacts violently with water.
>>
>> Depends. Yes, violently if confined, but merely vigorously if allowed
>> to skate around on the surface expelling energy.
> 
> Have you actually seen it?

Yes. Lithium is quite tame compared to any of the other alkali metals 
which invariably self ignite with really rather small fragments.

There is a lithium metal battery with potentially an order of magnitude 
higher energy density than current Lithium ion batteries but it is 
proving hard to tame. Has a nasty habit of forming dendrites and 
shorting itself out internally with all the usual problems...

They may yet perfect it as a technology.

> I have. (It was thick foil, not a lump, and it was not confined.)
> 
> Violent is the word that's fitting.

I'd go for vigorous. It melts fairly easily, floats and doesn't self 
ignite unless there is quite a decent chunk of it - more than pea sized.

Sodium is violent, melts and is self igniting at about pea size.

Potassium is close to explosive so best done with a very small piece.

Rubidium is explosively fast and memorable even for a tiny shard.

-- 
Martin Brown