Posted on 04/25/2017 12:53:20 PM PDT by LouieFisk
A train car carrying lithium batteries exploded just north of downtown Houston on Sunday.
The blast was so strong, it broke windows in nearby homes.
"The moment that I got into the threshold and got inside an explosion went off and it threw me into the other side of the door, so there was a tremendous amount of force – I had no idea what was happening." said Tashi Garcia, who lives nearby the railroad tracks.
After the ringing in his ears subsided, he said he checked out the damage to his home. There were broken windows and cracks along the walls.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
Android 7 shipment to the landfill?
Ah, to “recycling”.
There go all the new Galaxy 8 smartphones.
Bad enough that they are banned as cargo on commercial passenger aircraft, now trains. Still cannot figure out why Boeing stuck with Lithium batteries for the battery bus for their B-787 after multiple fires on-board.
Mother of all (suitcase) bombs....
Your iPhone on over-charged lithium batteries.
I understand that ammonium nitrate mixed with just the right proportion of fuel oil is pretty potent, too.
Texas City, 1947
And not hazardous. Kerblooie apparently don’t count.
Like you, I suffer Attention Surplus Disorder. The question that occurs to me is straightforward. These accidents occur when shipping “dead” batteries, IIRC. Maybe a chemist Freeper can help out here but I don’t get how a “charged” battery can be safe but a “dead” battery is dangerous. I suspect the problem is that the requisite care is taken of shipping “good” batteries and that disposing of “dead” batteries is likely to be attended with less vigilance.
“Android 7 shipment to the landfill?”
Or airliner batteries.
Well, it’s a sanctuary city, maybe the illegals can take care of it.
Wondering if it had anything to specifically help it blow up?
Barrels full of deadly Ah-Ji-No-Moto set to go off at end of meal.
As consumers demand batteries with very high stored energy densities, such batteries, most with reactive metals, become like small containers of explosives which can be set off when the internal separation membrane between the cathode and anode fails. The resulting short will heat up the inside and ignite the flammable material in the battery. The heat generated by the 25-micron-thick membrane shorting out (or being shorted out by a puncture) will cause other batteries stored next to it to fail and ignite as well. In a pallet containing crates of such batteries, it becomes a chain reaction.
Even if the batteries are supposedly discharged, any that had sufficient charge and failed could heat up and ignite the materials inside other discharged batteries.
is lithium the new hydrogen?
As I understand it, it is not a matter of charged vs discharged; it is a matter of “spanking new” vs “old and beat up”. Let’s recognize first that a “discharged” batt can have charge left in it but not have enough to power what it was intended to power; or, it’s being discarded because it won;t accept enough charge for the user to want to keep using it. Second, there is high power density. Third, when these batts are older and abused, there can be punctures in the membranes separating the electrodes > short circuit > VERY reactive metal > lots of batts packed together. Fourth, WHEN they have an internal damage issue, they are subject to thermal runaway and the great place to have this go on is an overheated railroad car in Houston?
Still cannot figure out why Boeing stuck with Lithium batteries for the battery bus for their B-787 after multiple fires on-board.
...
How many fires and how many miles flown since they made modifications?
12yrs ago I built the batteries for Segways. They blow up real good. One day a chick engineer leaned over and arced one with her huge belt-buckle. We all just stared at her, except me, I grabbed it and hurled it outside before it lit everything else up. They literally go up like fireworks, with a very sweet, distinct smell.
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