Expectations were high as the latest lightweight model finally hit the market 鈥� and initially at least, it didn鈥檛 disappoint. Users raved about everything from its sleek curves to its capacity and power. But then the lithium battery fires started 鈥� and the brand鈥檚 credibility took a knock.
No, not Samsung鈥檚 smartphone, whose battery fires saw the product withdrawn worldwide yesterday. Rather, this was the Boeing 787, the revolutionary carbon-fibre airliner whose launch was also dogged by episodes of spontaneous combustion in some of the lithium-ion batteries it used for backup power.
Those episodes 鈥� which saw the plane grounded at one point 鈥� started in January 2013 when a battery in an empty Japan Airlines plane combusted on the tarmac at Logan Airport in Boston. A week later one caught fire in flight, leading to an emergency landing and evacuation in Takamatsu, Japan.
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Then in January 2014, a 787 battery at Tokyo鈥檚 Narita airport. Boeing鈥檚 answer was to better enclose the power pack to contain any fire and add an exhaust that jettisons hot gas and smoke outside the plane.
Powerful punch
If such problems can strike a safety-critical system like a passenger-packed airliner, it is little surprise to see lithium batteries failing in less safety critical products. There have been a succession of them, from smartphones and laptops to hoverboards and e-cigarettes.
One reason is that while lithium-ion batteries may pack an unbeatable punch in terms of power density 鈥� which is why they are now so popular in portable devices 鈥� they can be volatile if treated badly.
And 鈥渂adly鈥� can mean squeezed into more extreme spaces and shapes by the forces of fashion, as well as being bent, bashed and abused in use. This is because lithium-ion battery chemistry is highly sensitive to tiny structural failures: if separators keeping their positive and negative electrodes apart fail, heat is very suddenly released in a process called 鈥溾��, causing a fire.
This type of failure is almost certainly what happened at Samsung, South Korea鈥檚 industrial champion. In September, the firm for the initial Note7 fires. But, after a first global product recall, its corrective action failed too 鈥� and this week the firm , asking owners to switch it off immediately 鈥� not even keeping it on to remove data 鈥� and return it to their retailer.
More to come?
This massive embarrassment will cost Samsung billions of dollars in the near term but the knock-on effect is incalculable. It is locked in a battle with Apple for smartphone customers, and with its , more of the same is possible.
And so, back to Boeing. The pressurised cabins of airliners are probably the worst place for a smartphone to catch fire 鈥� so the plane maker isn鈥檛 taking any chances. In August it was granted a patent (US 9415248) on a gas-venting into which cabin crew can drop, seal and extinguish a combusting phone, tablet, laptop or e-cigarette.
If a company like Boeing is having to take such measures, maybe that鈥檚 a sign the consumer electronics industry, and its regulators, need to work harder to avoid another meltdown.
