In August, the new Galaxy Note 7 from Samsung was released. At the same time, the company proudly announced that 45 thousand pre-orders from Europe had already been made for the new flagship model. As recently as October 11, the company stopped completely producing the phablet - the phone lasted on the market for no more than two months.
If you hurry, you will make people laugh
In its constant race with Apple for “bigger-thinner-more powerful”, the South Korean giant Samsung did not bother to test the new smartphone for explosiveness. And who cares about such trifles when a competitor is going to release a new smartphone with a numbering higher than that of the latest Samsung flagship. The iPhone 7 made developers nervous and abandoned the production of the sixth Galaxy Note, throwing all their efforts into developing the seventh flagship of the Galaxy Note series.
Explosive consequences
The first explosions followed in the first week of sales of the phablet. On August 24, an explosion occurred in China while a device was charging. Fortunately, there was no fire, and the owner escaped with a slight shock.
The second recorded case was less successful - the device exploded right in the car, causing the car to catch fire. There were also cases of fires on board aircraft, after which many airlines began to require their passengers to completely turn off their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
In the first two weeks after the sale of the flagship, about 50 cases of fire caused by the explosion of the device were reported.
On September 2, the company officially began recalling its new product in order to make additional changes to the device. At the same time, Samsung began replacing defective smartphones with the same model.
But it was strange to expect different behavior from an identical device - smartphones with kamikaze tenacity continued to undermine the company’s reputation.
On October 11th, Samsung completely stopped production of the Galaxy Note 7.
Who is guilty?
To understand the cause of the explosions, you need to understand the device of the smartphone itself, namely, the design of lithium-ion batteries, since they were the ones that exploded.
Batteries of this type have special controllers that save the battery from being overcharged or completely discharged, since both of these factors can destroy the battery. Most Samsung smartphones also have a fast charge function, which was achieved by increasing the voltage rather than the current.
For some reason, the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones did not have the same controllers, and the new smaller battery design affected the proximity of the positive and negative electrodes.
The following happened: the phone was completely discharged (which already had a detrimental effect on the battery itself), and then it received a shock dose of charging current (accelerated charging). As a result, overheating occurred, the pressure in the battery case increased, which led to an explosion.
Warning: pocket menace!
Since lithium burns at a temperature of 1336 degrees Celsius (chemist’s reference book), one can imagine what such an explosion could transform a room and a person standing next to. But it should be noted that similar explosions (of course in smaller numbers) have previously occurred with devices from other companies.
It is necessary to take into account not only the convenience, but also the danger of lithium batteries, the controllers of which can “fail” at any time. That is why equipment manufacturers advise charging phones and laptops only in personal presence, to eliminate the possibility of a fire in the room due to spontaneous combustion, and never charging devices while sleeping.
Loss of reputation
After the announcement of the termination of production of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung shares fell by 8%, and on October twelfth they fell by another 3%. During these two days, the company lost about 20 billion dollars.
Chasing competitors, the company was unable to make its device safe. It’s comical, but the press release of the new flagship, in addition to improving the display graphics and other pleasant bonuses, also talked about the increased security of the smartphone. Losing the trust of its customers will lead to irreversible consequences for the company. And Samsung executives are no longer concerned about the race for leadership with Apple or Google, but about returning to their previous position and stopping the stock from falling.
What happened to the Samsung flagship?
A Korean cafe employee tries to put out a smartphone that caught fire.
Samsung Note 7 was supposed to be the main competitor to the iPhone 7. The media raved about the design, camera and stylus operation. It was even presented a month earlier than the new iPhone and released several weeks before Apple's presentation - Samsung believed that this would help take market share from its competitor. But in the very first week after its release, reports of batteries catching fire began to appear. At the beginning of September, the company decided to recall the devices, and at the end of the month it re-released the Note 7 with a “safe” battery.
But reports of fires continued to arrive. On October 11, Samsung asked stores around the world to sell Note 7, and owners to sell the device and not use it anymore. They can now exchange the Note 7 for another Galaxy model (paying the difference) or get their money back. In Russia, return conditions are clarified by calling the hotline.
How often have phones actually exploded?
Before the recall began, Samsung managed to sell about 2.5 million devices (excluding China), but the battery defect, according to the company, was only 0.1%. That is, the battery could burn out in about 2.5 thousand Note 7. The exact number of fire cases is unknown, but there are definitely more than a hundred of them: as of mid-September, one was known in the USA, in Australia, in Korea and one in Taiwan. But new messages are still popping up.
From the descriptions of the incidents, it is impossible to understand in what cases the smartphone starts to burn. In Florida Note 7 set fire a jeep when it was charging from the cigarette lighter, in Australia the device was almost a room in a hotel - also while charging, in South Carolina a garage burned down completely because of it, a switched off Note 7 started smoking in the breast pocket on a plane flying to Baltimore, in Connecticut a smartphone practically in the hands of a teenager (he suffered minor burns), and in Kentucky, an unplugged Note 7 in his bedroom at night.
What causes the phone to light up in the first place?
The fact is that a smartphone battery is compressed from many layers of electrical conductors. Each layer has a cathode with positively charged ions and an anode with negatively charged ions. On the cathode side there are lithium ions: when the battery is charged, they move from the cathode to the anode, and back again when the battery is used. Between the cathode and the anode there is a thin dielectric plate that does not conduct electric current and prevents the cathode from reacting with the anode.
If the partition between them is destroyed, then the ions will follow a short path - a short circuit will occur. Then a chain reaction will begin: the battery will heat itself up even more, and the electrolyte will release flammable gas. When the reaction gains access to oxygen, a fire or even an explosion will occur. This is the general principle of the process, you can learn more about it.
Why are batteries so vulnerable?
In modern batteries, the thickness of the dielectric is only 20–25 micrometers, which is about three times thinner than a regular sheet of office paper. Firstly, this thin layer can collapse due to external pressure. For example, if you sit on your smartphone, bend it or hit it hard. After the dielectric is destroyed, the cathode and anode will react. The dielectric can also fail due to metal dust left inside after assembly.
The second reason for a short circuit is temperature. Lithium-ion batteries are not designed to operate in cold or hot weather. Due to overheating, the lithium metal in the battery grows into needle-like structures (dendrites), which can destroy the dielectric and create a short circuit.
There are many other reasons for heating: a smartphone is charging in the sun, a third-party charger does not know when to stop supplying current, the chip that turns off charging after 100% does not work, the battery has poor heat dissipation. Lithium-ion batteries have operating temperatures: they charge normally at temperatures from zero to 45 degrees, and operate at temperatures from -20 to 60 degrees. If the temperature is higher or lower, problems begin, and at 100 degrees there are very serious problems.
Why did this happen with the Note 7?
GTA V even has an addition in the form of a new Note 7 weapon capable of destroying opponents
Samsung said the batteries were burning due to a short circuit. Exactly why it happened will be determined by an internal investigation. Employees of the company said that the smartphone was prepared in a hurry in order to make it before the Apple presentation: the start date of sales was moved 10 days earlier, engineers constantly changed specifications and ordered new components, and employees had to sleep at work.
Lithium-ion batteries are considered not the most efficient for modern smartphones. Every year, devices appear with more powerful processors and brighter screens, but there are no fundamental changes in batteries. Manufacturers only have to pack the layers of conductors denser to get more capacity in a thinner package. The Note 7 battery was quite capacious - 3500 milliamp-hours. For comparison, the Note 6 has a 3,000 milliamp-hour battery, while the iPhone 7 has a 2,900 milliamp-hour battery. It's possible that the batteries were unevenly pressurized during the complex manufacturing process, causing them to charge unevenly as well.
What will happen to Samsung?
On the day sales were stopped, the company's shares dropped by 8%, and capitalization decreased by $17 billion. For comparison, in the fourth quarter of 2015 the company had operating income of $5.4 billion. It is unknown how much money Samsung will lose on returning devices.
Do smartphones from other manufacturers burn?
A battery defect is considered rare but dangerous. If defective batteries are put on sale, it only takes a few fire episodes for the company to recall the entire lot. In 2006, Dell and Apple sold about 6 million laptops with Sony batteries because some of them could catch fire. Although the probability of a defect was much lower than in the case of Note 7: 1 in 200,000 instead of 1 in 1000.
Phones have been on fire before. In 2002, a device of an unknown brand wore pants when I sat down on my iPhone 5c. And a student from New Jersey's iPhone 6s caught fire in his shirt pocket, even though it was turned off. A month ago, a construction worker from Ohio suffered serious burns to his leg when his Galaxy S7 Edge began to burn in his pocket, and a few days ago, a young man from Zhengzhou suffered burns and scratches when an iPhone 7 shattered in his hands while filming a video.
What should you do to prevent your smartphone from exploding?
Do not charge your smartphone in hot or sub-zero temperatures. Do not use cables or chargers from other smartphones or third-party manufacturers - especially for fast charging, as this will heat up the battery even more. Stop charging if the smartphone gets very hot (in this case, you should replace the battery or cable). Do not leave charging for a long time if the battery gets hot after 100%. Stop using the device if the body becomes bent or the battery becomes noticeably swollen or deformed. If the recommendations are not followed, the battery may not explode, but the likelihood of failure will increase.
What can you do to make sure it catches fire?
You can pierce the battery with something sharp: the dielectric will collapse - the cathode and anode will react, causing a short circuit. You can leave your phone charging under a heavy stress test and under a desk lamp. But it’s not worth doing either one or the other - it’s impossible to guess what the consequences will be: in one case, the battery will simply smoke and melt the phone, in the other, a jet of flame will shoot out of it.
From time to time, reports appear online that yet another smartphone has spontaneously ignited or even exploded. The latest and most sensational story is the one with the new Samsung model – the Galaxy Note 7. Since the presentation of this new premium smartphone model in August 2016 until the time of writing this article, there have already been more than 35 cases of these phones catching fire. Such an egregious number of incidents led to the fact that Samsung was forced to recall its smartphones, suffering huge losses, but trying to maintain its image. Buyers were even sent special heat-resistant packaging to send “explosive” smartphones to the manufacturer.
Let's try to figure out what causes phones to catch fire and how to protect yourself from such an unpleasant and very dangerous incident.
First of all, it is worth noting that in the vast majority of cases of spontaneous combustion, the smartphone battery is to blame. But the model of the device itself is of secondary importance - there have been cases of smartphones from completely different manufacturers catching fire - Samsung, iPhone, Nokia, etc. And although it is believed that the lithium-ion batteries that most modern smartphones are equipped with are slightly susceptible to fire, There are some conditions under which such a danger exists. The first of them is damage (hole) in the battery, which can be caused by dropping the smartphone. A break between battery cells can cause an internal short circuit, which will cause the battery to swell and possibly explode. The battery should not be subjected to physical deformation - piercing or drilling, because even one of these moments can cause the battery to explode. This is because the battery has a separator that separates the positive and negative electrodes. If a rupture occurs at this point and the electrodes touch, the battery will heat up very quickly, which can lead to a fire. In addition, cheap batteries occasionally contain microscopic metal particles that can come into contact with the battery cells, also causing a short circuit. Here is a clear demonstration of that. what damage to a smartphone battery can cause:
The second common condition is phones catching fire while charging. In this case, overheating of the battery leads to a fire or explosion, and judging by reports, this is exactly the problem that befell the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The fact is that overheating the battery can also cause a short circuit among its cells and, accordingly, subsequent ignition . Although in fact this happens either at very high temperatures, or when the battery itself is defective. By the way, overheating can also be caused by overcharging the battery, in which the battery receives more electrical current than it can handle.
Excessive heat in one area of the battery can lead to what is called "thermal runaway". This occurs when part of the battery does not cool down for a long time, which leads to a chain reaction causing uncontrolled heating. In other words, an overheated battery triggers a reaction that causes the temperature to spike even further. This ultimately leads to fire or explosion.
In general, good quality batteries have safety mechanisms that help prevent these dangerous reactions from occurring. However, if the production technology was violated or a defect appeared, the battery can easily overheat, as a result of which its internal cells are destroyed in a chain reaction. So, in the case of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, for example, it turned out that the batteries were produced by various contractors and, obviously, some of them were not of sufficient quality.
The most famous cases of smartphone fires
In 2007, a mobile phone battery exploded in China and killed a person. The deceased was a twenty-two-year-old worker at one of the metallurgical enterprises in the city of Lanzhou. In the middle of his workday, his mobile phone, which he was carrying in his left breast pocket, suddenly exploded. High air temperature on the day of the incident is cited as a possible cause of the battery explosion. As well as a possible manufacturing defect of the battery, which did not match the device.
In 2009, in the French city of Aix-en-Provence, an iPhone exploded in the hands of a local eighteen-year-old resident while he was typing an SMS. The Frenchman could not escape the fright - a fragment of the smartphone screen hit him right in the eye.
In 2010, the battery of the Motorola Droid 2 exploded during a call. Aron Embry heard a pop and then noticed that his ear was bleeding heavily. Embry received stitches. Aron's smartphone was only 2 days old from the date of purchase.
In 2014, seven-year-old Ariana from Astana received burns from the explosion of a Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone that was in her pocket. At this time, the girl was walking on the street, and the phone was in the front pocket of her jeans. As a result, the girl received a 3rd degree burn and underwent skin graft surgery.
That same year, eighteen-year-old Swiss resident Fanny sued Samsung after her new Galaxy SIII smartphone exploded in her pants pocket. The girl received severe burns to her legs and arms, with which she was taken to the hospital.
How to protect yourself from a smartphone exploding or catching fire.
Regardless of the reasons why smartphones spontaneously combust, here are some tips to help avoid disaster and protect yourself:
- Stop charging your phone if you notice that your phone is getting too hot. In this case, let the phone cool down a little and only then resume charging. Also make sure that the phone is not covered with anything so that the heat can escape unhindered.
- Use original chargers and cables. In order to be sure that your smartphone receives optimal power and electrical current when charging, you must use accessories from official manufacturers.
- Don't charge your phone in bed. Many of us love to watch videos or scroll through Facebook before going to bed, while simultaneously charging our smartphone. However, it is worth remembering that this can lead to tragic consequences. It is especially dangerous to leave a charging smartphone under your pillow.
- Pay close attention to charging locations. Avoid charging smartphones for long periods of time in hot places, such as in direct sunlight.
- Do not use the phone while charging. It is especially important not to use energy-intensive functionality, such as mobile games, while charging your smartphone. .
- Don't carry your phone in your back pocket. Thus, it can be easily deformed, causing damage and fire to the battery.
The first traditional signs of overheating are crackling, noise and swelling of the battery. If you notice any of these signs while charging, immediately stop charging and remove the battery from the phone (provided, of course, that it is removable). Once you are sure that the battery is really damaged, do not throw it in the trash, but hand it over to special collection points. In addition, very often in such cases, smartphone manufacturers agree to meet and replace the damaged battery, especially if the phone is under warranty.
I hope you found this article helpful. Take care of yourself and your smartphones.
The problem was corrected in new batches, but many of them burned.
While the world is discussing about the exploding iPhone 7 Plus, we decided to recall the cases of fire of a truly dangerous device – the Samsung Galaxy Note7.
The South Korean company omitted the Note 6 model from its lineup, considering that the number and scale of changes in the new smartphone allows it to “jump” one step. May be, Shouldn't you have angered the gods of arithmetic and logic?
Samsung sold about 2.5 million Galaxy Note7s, but a couple of weeks later launched a recall campaign. Naturally, this was not possible to do quickly, and we hear almost daily news about affected Note7 owners.
It all started almost immediately after the official start of sales.
1. After a fire, the house almost burned down
Schoolteacher Park Soo-Jung was forced to flee her bed when her brand new Galaxy Note7 suddenly burst into flames and filled her bedroom with smoke. The teacher escaped with fear and minor bruises after falling out of bed.
2. Blogger demonstrates a burnt Galaxy Note7
On on your Youtube channel user Ariel Gonzalez posted a video showing a Samsung Galaxy Note7 burning out while charging. Gonzalez is currently negotiating with Samsung for damages.
3. The garage burned down completely along with the Note7
Wesley Hartzog left his smartphone charging in the garage, which eventually burned out completely. According to Wesley, he missed the news that Samsung was recalling its new product due to a battery fire problem.
4. Note7 caused a jeep fire
American Nathan Dornacher left his Galaxy Note7 charging in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. After some time, he heard the alarming barking of a dog, looked outside and found his jeep engulfed in flames.
5. The man was left without pants. It could be even worse
Florida resident Jonathan Strobel suffered second-degree burns when a Samsung Galaxy Note7 exploded in his front pants pocket. Jonathan plans to sue the South Korean company for $15,000.
6. A child was injured by a Note7 fire
A six-year-old boy from Brooklyn suffered minor burns to his hands after a Samsung Galaxy Note7 caught fire in his hands. According to the child’s grandmother, the incident occurred while the grandson was watching a video on a smartphone that was charging.
7. Samsung smartphone damaged MacBook Pro
Chinese man Hui Renjie suffered minor burns to two fingers and damage to his MacBook from which the ill-fated Galaxy Note7 was charged. Interestingly, according to the Chinese user, the device was from a new “safe” batch.
7. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge may also be unsafe
Recently, there was another case of a Samsung smartphone catching fire. This time the cause of the fire was Galaxy S7 Edge. The smartphone caught fire while charging. The owner of the house, Danielle Boutilier, was forced to call the firefighters. According to her, before the fire, the smartphone was constantly overheating. It is not yet clear whether it is a coincidence or all Galaxy S7s are unsafe.
Of course, there are dozens of cases of explosions and fires of the fiery flagship Samsung Galaxy Note7. We have collected those that were widely covered in the press.
The biggest failure in the mobile industry
On September 2, Samsung Mobile President Koh Dong Jin was forced to publicly apologize for the self-igniting Galaxy Note7.
Today, many airlines have called on airplane passengers to limit the use of their Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone. Capitalization of Samsung fell by $22 billion, while analysts note that the company's losses will be even greater. It's not just about the cost of a recall, but also about lost opportunities and company prestige.
Sales of Galaxy Note7 have resumed worldwide since yesterday. Are you afraid to buy now or not?
The phone itself will never explode; the battery powering it, which is now most often a lithium ion battery, can explode.
The number of cases of explosions of gadgets containing such batteries has increased in recent years so much that lithium ion and simple lithium batteries have been recognized as dangerous cargo, and since the beginning of 2016 the International Civil Aviation Organization has banned the transport of such batteries in cargo vyh compartments of passenger aircraft. At the same time, gadget batteries can be carried with you in the cabin, however, they must meet certain conditions: have a lithium content of up to two grams and a power of no more than 100 W/hour.
How does this happen?
Canadian scientists from the company CLS wondered what happens inside the battery at the moment of explosion? They were able to look inside the battery and published their observations in the Journal of the Electrical Engineering Society in Canada. It turned out that everything happens due to a short circuit inside the power source: the lithium anode (positive electrode of the battery) reacts with the electrolyte. The battery begins to heat up, the material from which the cathode is made (negative electrode) is connected to the process, and after the battery warms up to two hundred degrees, a sharp release of oxygen occurs,carbon dioxide and other gases. The battery is swelling. Often the matter is limited to this, but in some cases the process goes further: toThe oxygen ignites due to the temperature and a small explosion occurs. This is dangerous for humans, primarily due to burns and minor injuries, and for the environment – due to fire. There have been cases when cars and furniture in apartments burned due to a telephone explosion. Eyewitnesses say that the phones not only burn, but also “boil with chemicals” and can damage other devices or wires that are nearby. But why do they explode?
Charger
Scientists from the Institute of Solid State Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk) believe that an explosion of a lithium-ion battery can occur for several reasons, including due to the charger.
The battery may be damaged if you use the wrong charger when charging your phone. Different manufacturers make battery electrodes from different materials and their charging speed is different. Some batteries can withstand charging at an increased speed, others, alas, cannot. If you connect the battery to an outlet using a more powerful “charger,” its partial destruction may occur: with a higher current, the inappropriate material heats up and the battery fails. This may not appear outwardly, but later the battery explodes.
Chip failure
Another reason is the failure of the device, which is required to monitor the charge level on the gadget. This is a tiny chip that monitors the charge level and prevents the battery from exceeding it: if it is exceeded, it simply turns it off. It will do the same if the phone overheats. But if the chip fails, expect trouble.
Mechanical damage to the battery
The researchers concluded that most often phones or smartphones explode due to mechanical failure of the battery. A breakdown can happen unnoticed - you dropped the battery on the floor while disassembling the device, or your child “played” with it. To damage the integrity of the battery inside, just try to bend it - and failure is guaranteed. According to statistics, several smartphones caught fire after their owners got into an accident or even simply fell off a bicycle. There is a known case when a smartphone caught fire in the cabin of an airplane: the owner dropped it on the floor in the aisle and stepped on it.
Canadian scientists also warn about damage: during experiments they saw that the destruction of the battery begins from those places where there was even the slightest violation of the integrity of the electrodes.
Manufacturing defect
Most often, consumers do not know where, who, or at which factory exactly the batteries that are used in gadgets are made, and the manufacturer sometimes tries to save money and buys cheap products. Tiny damage caused by an incompetent worker, a violation of technology, small particles of metal or other components that get into the electrolyte - all this can cause an emergency.
How to avoid this?
The measures are simple: you need to use only the charger that comes with the phone, handle the battery carefully, do not drop the phone, pay attention to the charging speed: if it suddenly speeds up, it means the battery is failing.
You need to pay attention to the temperature of the phone: if it gets very hot in a short time, then this is a bad sign.
You need to carefully put the battery compartment cover in place: if it fits into the grooves with difficulty, it may turn out that your battery is already swollen and dangerous to use.
Unfortunately, evolution in the battery industry is very slow. Russian scientists consider lithium-iron-phosphate batteries to be the safest, but for some reason they don’t make such batteries small.
The most serious incidents with telephones in our country occurred in Primorye, where a telephone caught fire in the hands of a schoolgirl right in class (the child received burns to his arms and legs and was hospitalized) and in Novosibirsk, where a telephone exploded in the cabin of a crane operator who was going high above the ground.
