So apparently Li-On batteries (like those in smartphones) emit hydrofluoric acid vapor if ruptured or ignited, and HF acid vapor is lethal if inhaled at 44 parts per million (a relatively tiny dosage,) which has me wondering - why aren’t instances of Li-On batteries rupturing or exploding a routinely deadly event when they do occur?
(Sorry about not posting sources - using my Android to post this - yes, ironic - and have hard time URL-ing.)
Safe exposure level is 30 ppm, fatalities for medium term exposure at 4000 ppm? That’s still a narrow range. But I /think/ that the real point is that Li-Ion batteries, at present, don’t use Fluorine.
Lithium ion batteries caused a plane to crash in 2010.
A quick scan of an article testing this does conclude that there are very lethal amounts released. But the circumstances need to be right to be lethal. A confined space and long enough amount of time exposed.
Fire encourages people to leave the area quickly. Even when they return to fight the fire, they instinctively stay upwind if possible. Convection from the heat directs the elements from the fire in specific directions. Drawing in fresh air for combustion. People will often be in the area of fresh air intake if at all possible.
Fires always release toxic things. But to die from one specific toxin, rather than a combination of all the bad things a fire produces, would be rare.
I used to take long international flights for work reasons. In the latter years I did think quite a bit about Lithium battery fires inflight. In the cabin or in the hold. That situation might lead to a more specific toxic related death scenario. Before the fiery crash scenario that follows.
They don’t?
Here’s a research report on flouride releases from LiOn batteries from last year. Mentions “The electrolyte in a lithium-ion battery is flammable and generally contains lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) or other Li-salts containing fluorine.”
Yikes.
I love science paper lingo: “An irreversible thermal event …”
I knew NiMHs could produce nasty HF compounds that burn through the skin and that NiCads had that fun Cadmium stuff. Didn’t know that LiOns could produce super toxic fumes. (Obviously any battery on fire will produce bad stuff. But this is bad stuff at low concentrations.)
Because usually people aren’t breathing in enough of the fumes?
The report ftg quotes uses the concentration in a space I can’t find described in the report (I might just be stupid) to estimate a rate of release. Someone with more knowledge of me could probably describe how small a space would be for that rate to give you a lethal dose, or even how close you have to be to the fire in an open space. But obviously the answer isn’t “if your phone starts burning in your bedroom you get a lethal dose within seconds”.
Ahh. So not a Li-F cell, rather, a Li-Fe cell “containing” LiPF6.
As that paper notes, the binder also contains F, (as do old refrigerator gasses). And, like old refrigerator gasses, dangerous when burned.