anyone know if it was lifepo4 chemistry?
Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
41–50 of 175 posts
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#42Reminds me of the Chernobyl disaster.
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#43Lithium battery fire cannot be 'put out'- in a normal sense. A fuel tank of petrol needs oxygen to burn, and when you spray foam on it your cut off the oxygen and the fire stops. A battery already contains energy, all the chemicals required for the reaction are already present, and once the energy release starts, sealing it from the environment does not stop the process. Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to…
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? They don't seem related in any way, beyond there being a hot thing.
He might be thinking of where they poured boron sand on it, or built a graphite topped concrete pad underneath. And then the later concrete encapsulation.
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#45This is from over a year ago, but it would be very interesting to read a more recent update.
From April of this year: > Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will resume cleanup of hazardous and potentially hazardous substances remaining after the June 29, 2021, lithium battery fire at 900 E. Benton St., Morris, Illinois. The Agency estimates the cleanup will take five to six months. > The building housed more than 500,000 pounds of batteries, including more than 140,000 pounds of lithium batteries htt…
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#46Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#47Lithium battery fire cannot be 'put out'- in a normal sense. A fuel tank of petrol needs oxygen to burn, and when you spray foam on it your cut off the oxygen and the fire stops. A battery already contains energy, all the chemicals required for the reaction are already present, and once the energy release starts, sealing it from the environment does not stop the process. Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to…
I think the standard procedure in EV car fires is to just dump water on it to conduct the heat away as fast as possible, and to keep dumping water on it until the batteries can no longer self-ignite -- which can take awhile.
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#48Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#49Why on earth do you move 28 tonnes of cement from southern England to the US to put out a fire! I am of course joking - badly. Portland is in Dorset (UK) and is where the eponymous stuff was first extracted along with stone. This is a novel way to put out fires but a logical one if the temperatures are right. Conc can burn if it's too hot - and it sets/cures with an exothermic reaction. That's why you have to pour it…
I thought that was funny. Nerdy, but funny. I also am puzzles by the viability of using exothermic cement to smother a rxn
It is a chemical reaction when you mix and pour it and it does not simply dry out. That's why it works underwater if you are careful to stop currents from winnowing out the cement from the aggregate. It also gives off a lot of heat in volume when curing if you are not careful.
Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)
#50Lithium battery fire cannot be 'put out'- in a normal sense. A fuel tank of petrol needs oxygen to burn, and when you spray foam on it your cut off the oxygen and the fire stops. A battery already contains energy, all the chemicals required for the reaction are already present, and once the energy release starts, sealing it from the environment does not stop the process. Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to…
I think the standard procedure in EV car fires is to just dump water on it to conduct the heat away as fast as possible, and to keep dumping water on it until the batteries can no longer self-ignite -- which can take awhile.