The whole Galaxy Note 7 fiasco which happened raised many eyebrows as it put many lives of risk with a huge number of reports coming from all over the world about the phone bursting up into flames. Faulty batteries were mainly blamed for the reported explosions which led to companies like LG to start testing their phones much more extensively to avoid such kind of fiasco in future.
A team of researchers from Stanford University have built a new kind of battery using the same lithium-ion compound but with a capsule of a chemical called triphenyl phosphate (TPP) within the battery’s electrolyte fluid. The TPP chemical is released from the melting of capsule whenever the battery is overheating at around 150-degrees Celsius. Triphenyl phosphate is a chemical compound known for its fire retarding qualities – and in this case it can cool the battery in just 0.4 seconds. The study is published in a journal on Science Advances.
“During thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery, the protective polymer shell would melt, triggered by the increased temperature, and the flame retardant would be released, thus effectively suppressing the combustion of the highly flammable electrolytes,” an abstract from paper reads.
Samsung is supposed to release a report on January 23 about the real and detailed reason on why the phones blasted but early reports have kept claiming that it was because of the faulty batteries which were there in the replacement units as well.