Are lithium batteries safe?

[SmoothGhoster]

Does anyone worry about lithium batteries catching fire. Does saltwater extinguish a lithium fire. Inexperienced boater I have no clue

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by SmoothGhoster

Does anyone worry about lithium batteries catching fire. Does saltwater extinguish a lithium fire. Inexperienced boater I have no clue

The interwebs
There is so much more than pr0n and cat videos.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by SmoothGhoster

Does anyone worry about lithium batteries catching fire. Does saltwater extinguish a lithium fire. Inexperienced boater I have no clue

There is so much on this forum alone simple is lifepo4 is safe any others I would have reservations to outright not happening so .

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...nks-65069.html
just need to look at the last 25 or 30 pages to get a good idea

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ns-271340.html

Another thread to get a good idea on drop ins .

Just do a forum search for lifepo4 batteries .

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

The interwebs
There is so much more than pr0n and cat videos.

Yep there's sailing videos

[Montanan]

A lot of water will cool a thermal runaway battery and thence suppress flames. By way of example, it can take upwards of 6,000 gallons of water to cool a Tesla car that is on fire but it can reignite hours or days later.

Recommend just keep soaking a battery or if you can safely transport it topside [by use of wrapping in a fire suppression blanket and fire / heat resistance gloves] to just dump it overboard. The issue with boat batteries is that they are attached by cables to the electric system so one can't just pick them up like one can with a power tool battery and they are rather heavy & bulky and have loads of energy within them.

There is a lot of energy in a lithium battery so if it is shorting that is a lot of current flowing and current induces a lot of thermal resistive heating. As long as the current flow is high amperage there will be considerable heat induced. If one can break the short then that will inhibit the current flow but if the short is inside the battery there is no method of inhibiting it until the short becomes open by melting or combustion, or explosion.

The big difference between a lithium fire on a boat versus a vehicle is that a boat's battery will be comparatively low voltage, say, 12 to 45 volts whereas a vehicle's battery will be many hundreds of volts; we typically design our electric propulsion systems to utilize 600 to 800 volts [headed towards 1,200 + volts] on our vehicle motors / controllers. The water will not be problematic as to being a hazardous electrical conductor for a low voltage system, but salt water with a high voltage system could be shocking; have never done the calculation with our higher voltage systems and salt water. Our propulsion systems are routinely tested with non-salt water intrusion.

FYI: Lithium ferrous phosphate battery chemistry is much less prone to thermal runaway and flaming then other lithium chemistry batteries. Strongly recommend that you use high quality sources of LiFePo batteries for shipboard use.

Have had a lot of experience with lithium batteries of all types and sizes having been involved in the pioneering the electrification of the outdoor power equipment product sector and then the electric vehicle industry. I presently have the largest lithium battery manufacturer [with about 40% of the world's market share] as a 50/50 joint venture business partner in our transformation of the technology for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning sector and we will incorporate their energy storage systems into our energy savings and energy generation technologies. Big fan of lithium battery technologies.

The other big difference between a lithium fire [or any cause of fire] on a vehicle and on a boat [or on an airplane] is that one can just stop a vehicle and walk away from the devastatingly destructive fire, but aboard a boat or an airplane one does not get to just walk away. A boat burns down to the water line and a plane crashes. Therein lies why when shipping lithium batteries we had to label the packages with the warning: Prohibited for transport on passenger airplane or vessel. And apply a hazardous goods code sticker to each package or pallet.

Recall receiving a call from a Captain in the USCG asking whether our batteries and garden tools could be legally and safely transported to the island of Martha's Vineyard by delivery vessel that desired to take them on board, and I told him no, hell no, and that the dealer that purchased them would be refunded or that he could sell them on the mainland where ship board transport was not required instead a truck could deliver the large order of equipment and batteries. The master of the ship [I believe it was a ferry] had seen our warning labels on the pallets of product and decided to inquire with the local USCG for guidance, hence the call to us on our emergency contact number. This was back in 2010 - 2012 days, early on in the lithium battery market and logistic development era.

If a lithium battery does short and flames it is very problematic, loads of toxic and noxious fumes and much heat. Been their done that too many times, including having our county's garbage dump catch on fire when some our moderate amperage hour batteries were improperly disposed without having been fully deenergized and then became shorted when they were crushed by the bulldozers. Heard from the rural fire marshall and volunteer firefighters that they were a tad bit upset needing to have bulldozers undig the trash piles at the landfill and truck a lot of water [and a lot of their volunteer time] to the landfill to cool the crushed and shorted batteries that were causing the combustible municipal trash to burn and to reignite. Never did determine if those batteries came from improper disposal by our production personnel or if they were a batch of our large lithium batteries that were stolen by drug dealer for use in their production of methamphetamines. After a few hundred pounds of our batteries end up missing [stolen] we placed them in locked outdoor storage containers with security monitoring and routine local police patrols to inhibit our lithium ending up in local meth labs. Kind of makes one feel terrible when you know of kids that used meth and you realize that the metal chemical may have been sourced from your batteries. We had to instruct the national retailers of our power tools to not sell them to kids or to sell more than one to anyone that was not a professional landscaper or forester so as to inhibit illicit purchases and uses of the metal.

We routinely needed to transport our lithium batteries on cargo only airplanes, very expensive to transport many thousands of kilowatts hours of lithium batteries via air cargo. Big $$$$ to exclusively charter a huge cargo plane with a full load to deliver batteries from China to Montana USA. There being less concern about having only a pilot and co-pilot killed on a cargo only airplane, instead of a full passenger load; I guess it is the hazard of the professional crew. I would not have wanted to fly on such planes across the Pacific, I have too much respect and concern for the amount of electrical energy that can go sideways on tens of thousands of pounds of lithium chemistry. One defective battery runaway leads to damage of the adjacent batteries in quick succession. Short, short, short, etc. cell by cell by cell. We packaged our batteries in sturdy and specialized methods to meet Department of Transportation safety standards.

[SV Confianza]

Will prowse did a nice demo and explanation of the superior stability of LFP batteries (the type used on boats) over other chemistries: https://youtu.be/D8xNjz73p80

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Yep there's sailing videos

Come on, be honest, good sailing videos are porn of the best sort.

[Joust]

Remember back in 2010, UPS lost a 747 due to lithium battery fire in the cargo hold. Amazingly, no one on the ground was injured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6

[wholybee]

Lot's of scary sounding stuff. But it (apparently) can't be stated enough, the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are not only safer than other Lithium types, they are very near impossible to get to burn up in thermal runaway. If you put a direct short to them, they are unlikely to start on fire, or even get hot enough to ignite the wood box they are in. In an actual short circuit event, the shorted wire itself is more likely to set wood or fiberglass on fire than the LFP battery. And fiberglass is more toxic burning than the LFP battery.

ABYC recently performs tests trying to get an LFP battery to fail in flames and couldn't. Not with short circuits, punctures, even going as far as setting the boat on fire and letting it burn. Other tests that I have seen that managed to get LFP into thermal "runaway" (I use that in quotes because it doesn't meet my definition of "runaway") The battery was subjected to a direct short, and then on top of that was heated with an electric coil. It reached a point where they would sustain a high temperature after removing the short and external heat. But did not "runaway" and keep getting hotter. The temperature they stabilized at was near the temperature wood smolders at. Enough to damage it, but not enough to ignite it.

In the real world, that could only happen if the boat was already on fire, as a short alone didn't do it. And once the boat is on fire, the LFP doesn't contribute any more heat. Let's not forget than in similar situations, short circuits, fire etc. that a Lead Acid battery can explode. And that even though the electrolyte in LFP is somewhat toxic, it pales in comparison to sulfuric acid.

Industry, auto, laptops, cell phones, etc. have all chosen not to use LFP because LFP is larger and heavier than other Lithium types. So, examples of fires in those products do not translate to Lithium batteries on a boat.

All and all, LFP are far safer than the LA batteries they replace.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Come on, be honest, good sailing videos are porn of the best sort.

Very true but not all enjoy our kind of p....n
https://youtu.be/OaCH5zhld9U

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Montanan

A lot of water will cool a thermal runaway battery and thence suppress flames. By way of example, it can take upwards of 6,000 gallons of water to cool a Tesla car that is on fire but it can reignite hours or days later.

Recommend just keep soaking a battery or if you can safely transport it topside [by use of wrapping in a fire suppression blanket and fire / heat resistance gloves] to just dump it overboard. The issue with boat batteries is that they are attached by cables to the electric system so one can't just pick them up like one can with a power tool battery and they are rather heavy & bulky and have loads of energy within them.

There is a lot of energy in a lithium battery so if it is shorting that is a lot of current flowing and current induces a lot of thermal resistive heating. As long as the current flow is high amperage there will be considerable heat induced. If one can break the short then that will inhibit the current flow but if the short is inside the battery there is no method of inhibiting it until the short becomes open by melting or combustion, or explosion.

The big difference between a lithium fire on a boat versus a vehicle is that a boat's battery will be comparatively low voltage, say, 12 to 45 volts whereas a vehicle's battery will be many hundreds of volts; we typically design our electric propulsion systems to utilize 600 to 800 volts [headed towards 1,200 + volts] on our vehicle motors / controllers. The water will not be problematic as to being a hazardous electrical conductor for a low voltage system, but salt water with a high voltage system could be shocking; have never done the calculation with our higher voltage systems and salt water. Our propulsion systems are routinely tested with non-salt water intrusion.

FYI: Lithium ferrous phosphate battery chemistry is much less prone to thermal runaway and flaming then other lithium chemistry batteries. Strongly recommend that you use high quality sources of LiFePo batteries for shipboard use.

Have had a lot of experience with lithium batteries of all types and sizes having been involved in the pioneering the electrification of the outdoor power equipment product sector and then the electric vehicle industry. I presently have the largest lithium battery manufacturer [with about 40% of the world's market share] as a 50/50 joint venture business partner in our transformation of the technology for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning sector and we will incorporate their energy storage systems into our energy savings and energy generation technologies. Big fan of lithium battery technologies.

The other big difference between a lithium fire [or any cause of fire] on a vehicle and on a boat [or on an airplane] is that one can just stop a vehicle and walk away from the devastatingly destructive fire, but aboard a boat or an airplane one does not get to just walk away. A boat burns down to the water line and a plane crashes. Therein lies why when shipping lithium batteries we had to label the packages with the warning: Prohibited for transport on passenger airplane or vessel. And apply a hazardous goods code sticker to each package or pallet.

Recall receiving a call from a Captain in the USCG asking whether our batteries and garden tools could be legally and safely transported to the island of Martha's Vineyard by delivery vessel that desired to take them on board, and I told him no, hell no, and that the dealer that purchased them would be refunded or that he could sell them on the mainland where ship board transport was not required instead a truck could deliver the large order of equipment and batteries. The master of the ship [I believe it was a ferry] had seen our warning labels on the pallets of product and decided to inquire with the local USCG for guidance, hence the call to us on our emergency contact number. This was back in 2010 - 2012 days, early on in the lithium battery market and logistic development era.

If a lithium battery does short and flames it is very problematic, loads of toxic and noxious fumes and much heat. Been their done that too many times, including having our county's garbage dump catch on fire when some our moderate amperage hour batteries were improperly disposed without having been fully deenergized and then became shorted when they were crushed by the bulldozers. Heard from the rural fire marshall and volunteer firefighters that they were a tad bit upset needing to have bulldozers undig the trash piles at the landfill and truck a lot of water [and a lot of their volunteer time] to the landfill to cool the crushed and shorted batteries that were causing the combustible municipal trash to burn and to reignite. Never did determine if those batteries came from improper disposal by our production personnel or if they were a batch of our large lithium batteries that were stolen by drug dealer for use in their production of methamphetamines. After a few hundred pounds of our batteries end up missing [stolen] we placed them in locked outdoor storage containers with security monitoring and routine local police patrols to inhibit our lithium ending up in local meth labs. Kind of makes one feel terrible when you know of kids that used meth and you realize that the metal chemical may have been sourced from your batteries. We had to instruct the national retailers of our power tools to not sell them to kids or to sell more than one to anyone that was not a professional landscaper or forester so as to inhibit illicit purchases and uses of the metal.

We routinely needed to transport our lithium batteries on cargo only airplanes, very expensive to transport many thousands of kilowatts hours of lithium batteries via air cargo. Big $$$$ to exclusively charter a huge cargo plane with a full load to deliver batteries from China to Montana USA. There being less concern about having only a pilot and co-pilot killed on a cargo only airplane, instead of a full passenger load; I guess it is the hazard of the professional crew. I would not have wanted to fly on such planes across the Pacific, I have too much respect and concern for the amount of electrical energy that can go sideways on tens of thousands of pounds of lithium chemistry. One defective battery runaway leads to damage of the adjacent batteries in quick succession. Short, short, short, etc. cell by cell by cell. We packaged our batteries in sturdy and specialized methods to meet Department of Transportation safety standards.

Lifepo4 are not really restricted however most other chemistries are .

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Joust

Remember back in 2010, UPS lost a 747 due to lithium battery fire in the cargo hold. Amazingly, no one on the ground was injured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6

Wish the writeup would have stated what exact chemistry. Likely Lithium cobalt

Lifepo4 are safe
https://youtu.be/R9xZf4p8PkQ

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by wholybee

Lot's of scary sounding stuff.

So true, lifiums are a terrible idea, we should stick to lead acid, they never explode, leak or give off chlorine gas in the presence of saltwater

Wish people would stop buying LifePO4, the price keeps going up in the UK and I want more

Pete

[chubby]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

The interwebs
There is so much more than pr0n and cat videos.