We might finally be getting an explosion-proof smartphone battery

Image: AP

Lithium-ion batteries power most of the portable devices we carry with us every day. The vast majority are designed safely, but occasionally there can be a problem that makes the batteries overheat. If that happens, there's a chance the battery can catch fire.  

The potential volatility of lithium-ion batteries received unprecedented attention this past fall because of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco (a design flaw in the battery appears to have been the issue). In response, a group of researchers at Stanford University have designed a battery with a built-in safety feature for when it gets too heated.   

In a peer-reviewed paper recently published in Science Advances, the Stanford team describes a new battery design with flame-retardant features. They call it a “smart nonwoven electrospun separator," whose firefighting tech is triggered when the battery's temperature reaches a certain thermal threshold.

The flame retardant is encapsulated within a protective polymer shell, which keeps the safety feature separated from the other working parts of the battery. But once the battery overheats and gets hot enough, the protective polymer shell melts and the flame retardant does its thing to cool things down, keeping your device from becoming a pocket grenade. 

When the researchers tested the new battery, the whole process took 0.4 seconds — about how long it takes to blink. Instead of being alerted of an overheated battery from a smoking device and painful burns, you'll be confident that your phone will be able handle the issue on its own.

Most importantly, the researchers say the "smart and adaptive material" won't impede battery performance. Safer battery technology won't do much good if it only powers our phones for an hour.

New battery technologies take years to go from the lab to actual products, but it's possible this promising new tech will eventually make its way into the devices we depend on every day. It could help to prevent more wide-scale battery snafus for companies like Samsung — and consumers won't need to worry that their favorite devices will blow up in their pockets.

