Is Lithium-Ion A Borgia Battery?
I've recently learned that lithium ion battery packs might be a triple threat - Borgia batteries - cherished by eco-royalty, poisonous in the extreme, and explosive enough to wreak havoc in a $25 million laboratory that was built to safely manage battery explosions.
Is it a battery or a WMD?
On April 11th five employees of the advanced battery laboratory at the General Motors (HECO) Technical Center in Warren, Michigan were hurt when extreme testing of a prototype lithium-ion battery pack from A123 Systems (AONE) released chemical gases that exploded inside a testing chamber. Four were treated at the scene and one was taken to a local hospital. The injuries were not life threatening.
About 1,100 employees who work in the Warren facility were evacuated while a HAZMAT team spent four hours taking air samples inside and outside the building. While most of the evacuees were able to return to work, it's unclear how long it will take to repair about $5 million of damage to the battery laboratory and resume operations.
HECO quickly advised the media that the incident didn't involve a battery for the HECO Volt and technically there was no battery explosion at all. Engineers were simply conducting extreme overcharge tests on a prototype battery and it failed, which is exactly what you'd expect.
Or is it?
The fact that there was a battery failure and vented gases ignited doesn't surprise me. The fact that the explosion was violent enough to cause major structural damage to a purpose-built facility that was designed to safely manage the occasional li ion battery packs explosion is very troubling. The chemical composition of the gas that allegedly caused the explosion is a nightmare. The terrifying aspect is that these issues are being ignored, or at least swept under the rug, to protect the tarnished image of HECO's Volt.
On Friday the 13th, Torque News reported:
The battery involved in the Wednesday morning explosion didn't actually explode but rather gases created in the testing chamber ignited and caused the massive explosion. During the extreme testing process, hydrogen sulfide gas collected in the testing area and when that cloud of gas ignited - we had the massive explosion that injured five and did significant damage to the Alternative Energy Center testing area including blowing out windows and at least one 8" thick door. Afterwards, the reports indicate that the battery pack itself was still intact.
It may just be my lawyer's fascination with words and sentence structure, but the second sentence of that paragraph sure sounds like an unattributed direct quote from somebody in the know at solar generating system.
I'm not a chemist, but I have substantial oil and gas experience including three years as legal counsel for Boots & Coots, the largest oil field disaster response firm in the world. Because of that experience I know that hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) is:
The reason rotten eggs stink;Explosive at concentrations of 43,000 to 460,000 PPM; andOne of the deadliest poisons known to man.In the US, Occupational Safety and Health Regulations prohibit exposure to H2S concentrations above 100 PPM without a full facepiece pressure demand self-contained breathing apparatus.