Is Lithium-Ion Safe?

摘要

Editor's Note: Isidor Buchmann wrote about lithium-ion batteries in the July/August 2006 issue of BI&T. Here he responds to the recent recalls of these batteries because of fire hazards.nnLithium-ion holds twice the energy of a nickel-based battery and four times that of lead acid. It's a low maintenance system, an advantage that memory and sulfation problems as is the case with nickel-and lead-based systems. In addition, lithium-ion has a low self-discharge and is environmentally friendly.nnWith high usage of lithium-ion in cell phones, digital cameras, and laptops, there are bound to be issues. A 1-in-200,000 failure triggered a recall of almost 6 million lithium-ion packs for Dell and Apple laptops in August. Heat-related battery failures are taken very seriously and the decision to replace the batteries puts the consumer at ease. Let's take a look at what's behind the recall.