Researchers develop fire extinguishing battery

A team of researchers from Stanford University have developed something electronics giant Samsung will no doubt be interested in; a smartphone battery complete with a built-in ‘fire extinguisher’.

To achieve this, the team inserted a shell containing flame retardant material triphenyl phosphate (TPP) into a lithium-ion battery’s electrolyte fluid. If the battery overheats and catches fire, the shell will melt and release the chemical compound, putting out the fire almost instantaneously.

Indeed, during testing the team were able to put out battery fires using the shell method in 0.4 seconds. A number of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphones famously caught fire during 2016, and it appears that the research was independently conducted to address this problem.