Smartphones grenades: why gadgets explode and how to avoid it. Why smartphone batteries explode and how to prevent Samsung from exploding

09/01/2016, Thu, 15:20, Moscow time , Text: Valeria Shmyrova

Samsung interrupts Galaxy Note 7 shipments in South Korea

Samsung has interrupted shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone to three major mobile carriers in South Korea to conduct several additional quality control tests. The company does not elaborate on the exact reason for the tests.

Reuters linked the cut-off to cases when the battery of a smartphone that went on sale late last month exploded from overheating. At the same time, users of the Galaxy Note 7 on forums and in social networks and other problems with the device.

Galaxy Note 7 Battery Explosion Cases

The first case of a Galaxy Note 7 battery explosion was reported in China about a week ago. User with the nickname Mr. Ni 666666 posted a photo of the melted device on the local Baidu forum. According to him, the smartphone caught fire when it was connected with a charger to the electrical network.

Galaxy Note 7 burned out while charging in China

According to Business Korea, on August 30, 2016, a similar incident occurred in South Korea. The popular Korean social network Kakao Story posted a photo of another melted Galaxy Note 7. According to the owner of the smartphone, it also exploded while charging. Samsung has seized the damaged phones from customers to investigate.

Samsung's losses after canceled shipments

The company announced a supply interruption on the evening of August 31, 2016. According to Reuters, this decision has already cost Samsung $ 7 billion of its market value due to an immediate 2% drop in the stock. According to Park Jung-hoon, manager of HDC Asset Management, Samsung's profit for July-September 2016 will fall by at least $ 180 million.

Galaxy Note 7 exploded in South Korea

Samsung subsidiary SDI, which supplies batteries for the Galaxy Note 7, said it has not received any information from Samsung about problems with this model. However, after the announcement of the interruption in supply, the company's shares fell 6.1%.

In early August, the financial services company Hyundai Securities expressed confidence that by the end of 2016 Samsung will be able to sell about 12 million Galaxy Note 7. According to the analyst of the firm Kim Dong-won Galaxy Note 7 was supposed to distract the attention of buyers from the iPhone 7, which is scheduled for release on September 7th.

The average Galaxy Note 7 price in South Korea is $ 882. According to Samsung, demand for the new model in this market exceeded supply even before the start of sales. The South Korean press, citing a source at Samsung, reports that the company plans to recall soon those Galaxy Note 7s that have any battery problems. The company will not refund money or change the smartphone to a new one, but will only replace the battery for free.

What happened to Samsung's flagship?

An employee of a Korean cafe tries to extinguish a burning smartphone

The Samsung Note 7 was supposed to be the main competitor to the iPhone 7. The media rave about the design, camera and stylus. It was even introduced a month before the new iPhone and released a few weeks before Apple's presentation - Samsung believed that this would help take away market share from a competitor. But in the first week after the release, messages began to appear about igniting batteries. In early 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 anyway. On October 11, Samsung asked stores around the world to sell the Note 7, and the owners - the devices and no longer use them. They can now trade the Note 7 for another Galaxy model (paying the difference) or get the money back. In Russia, the terms of return are specified by calling the hotline.

How often did phones actually explode?

Before the recall began, Samsung had sold about 2.5 million devices (excluding China), but the battery defect, according to the company, is only 0.1%. That is, the battery could have burned out in about 2.5 thousand Note 7. The exact number of cases of fire is unknown, but there are definitely more than a hundred of them: in mid-September it was known about in the USA, in Australia, in Korea and one in Taiwan. But new messages still pop up.

From the description of the incidents, it is impossible to understand in which cases the smartphone starts to burn. Florida Note 7 set fire a jeep, when it was charging from a cigarette lighter, in Australia, the device was almost a hotel room - also while charging, in South Carolina because of it, a garage completely burned down, the Note 7 turned off smoke in a breast pocket on an airplane flying to Baltimore, in Connecticut a smartphone was practically in the hands of a teenager (he received minor burns), and in Kentucky, an unconnected Note 7 in the bedroom at night.

What causes the phone to light up at all?

The fact is that a smartphone battery is pressed 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 are lithium ions: when the battery is charged, they pass from the cathode to the anode, and when the battery is used, they go back. Between the cathode and the anode is a thin dielectric plate that does not conduct electric current and does not allow the cathode to react with the anode.

If the partition between them collapses, 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, it will ignite or even explode. 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. First, 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 destruction of the dielectric, the cathode and anode will react. The dielectric can also collapse due to metal dust that remains 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: the smartphone is charging in the sun, the third-party charger does not know when to stop the current supply, the chip that turns off charging after 100% does not work, the battery has poor heat dissipation. Lithium-ion batteries have operating temperatures: they normally charge 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, 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.

At Samsung, that the batteries burned due to a short circuit. Because of what exactly it happened - an internal investigation will find out. Employees of the company that the smartphone was preparing in a hurry in order to be in time before the presentation of Apple: the start date of sales was moved 10 days earlier, engineers were constantly changing specifications and ordering new components, and employees had to sleep at work.

Lithium-ion batteries are not considered the most efficient for today's smartphones. Every year, devices get more powerful processors, brighter screens, but there are no fundamental changes in the batteries. Manufacturers only have to stack the conductor layers tighter to get more capacitance in a thinner package. The Note 7's battery was large enough at 3,500 milliampere-hours. For comparison, the Note 6 has a 3,000mAh battery, while the iPhone 7 has a 2,900mAh battery. It is possible that during a complex production process, the accumulators have uneven pressure, which is why they were also charged unevenly.

What will happen to Samsung?

On the day the sales stopped, the company's shares fell by 8%, and the 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 defect in a battery is considered rare but dangerous. If defective batteries are sold, just a few episodes of fire are enough for the company to recall the entire batch. In 2006, Dell and Apple nearly 6 million laptops with Sony batteries due to some of them catching fire. Although the probability of a defect was much lower than in the case of the Note 7: 1 in 200,000 instead of 1 in 1000.

The phones were on fire before. In 2002, a device of an unknown brand of pants, when he sat down on his iPhone 5c. And a student from New Jersey had an iPhone 6s on fire in his shirt pocket, although it was turned off. A month ago, a construction worker from Ohio severe burns to his leg when his Galaxy S7 Edge started burning in his pocket, and a few days ago a young man from Zhengzhou burned and scratched when an iPhone 7 shattered in his hands while filming a video.

What should be done to prevent the smartphone from exploding?

Do not charge your smartphone in hot or subzero temperatures. Do not use cables and chargers from other smartphones or third-party manufacturers - especially for fast charging, as this will heat the battery even more. Stop charging if your smartphone gets very hot (in this case, you should replace the battery or cable). Do not leave to charge for a long time if the battery heats up after 100%. Stop using the device if the casing is bent or the battery is noticeably swollen or deformed. If the recommendations are violated, the battery may not explode, but the likelihood of damage will increase.

And what to do to make it catch fire for sure?

You can pierce the battery with something sharp: the dielectric will collapse - the cathode and anode will react, a short circuit will begin. You can leave your phone charging under a heavy stress test and under a desk lamp. But doing neither one nor the other is not worth it - it is impossible to guess what the consequences will be: in one case, the battery will simply smoke and melt the phone, in the other - a stream of flame will hit it.

The Korean company Samsung has epically disgraced itself with the new flagship smartphone Galaxy Note 7: all the efforts of the developers, it seems, were thrown into giving up the name Note 6 (this is the sixth generation), and to draw a seven so that the figure was no less than expected September 7 iPhone 7. But to design a smartphone so that it does not explode during charging did not work.

History of the problem

The story developed rapidly. In August, in countries where the Note 7 went on sale earlier than others, 35 smartphones exploded.

On August 30, the company stopped accepting pre-orders for the Note 7, explaining this by high demand, but accidentally missed the numbers. The fact is that at first Samsung cheerfully reported about 7,500 Russian pre-orders in the first week, and three weeks later - about 9,000, that is, five times less were ordered in two weeks. In other countries, pre-orders have also been suspended.

On September 1, it became known about the termination of sales of Note 7 in 10 countries and there were rumors about a large-scale recall campaign: almost all the sold devices will be replaced.

On September 2, Samsung officially announced the recall of all smartphones sold. Anyone who ordered a prepaid device (in Russia there are about 900 people) can return the funds in full.

Why do batteries explode?

All this time, through a number of media outlets, information was launched that smartphones explode only when using an unoriginal charger or an unoriginal cable - this, however, is talk in favor of the poor, because a native device with a cable usually lies at home, but in the car, at work and friends use whatever. And then what does "unoriginal" mean? Samsung itself does not produce chargers and cables, but orders them from outside. If, say, not Samsung, but Sony is written on a cable or charger manufactured at the same factory, is it immediately counterfeit? In fact, for this, the manufacturers at one time agreed to use a standard USB connector so that the charging was universal.

Moreover, they are all standard: normal charging produces a voltage of 5V and a current of up to 2A. The current strength at a specific time is determined by the charge controller included in the smartphone's chipset. Moreover, a lithium-ion battery usually has its own controller, which protects the "bank" itself, firstly, from overcharging, and secondly, from deep discharge - both are detrimental to the lithium-ion battery. Fast charging uses increased voltage (9 V, 2 A or 9 V, 1.67 A or in some cases 12 V). It is the voltage that is raised, not the current (otherwise a much thicker wire will be required). At the same time, in order not to burn a regular phone with fast charging, data exchange is used between the charging itself and the phone: it, roughly speaking, sends a request: "Do you support fast charging?", And if the answer is "yes", then it turns on the increased voltage , and the controller is already charging the battery with a high current.

In the case of the Note 7, for some reason, the charging controller in the smartphone first failed, after which too much charging current was supplied to the battery. At the same time, the exploded batteries (all cases of explosions are associated with devices from early batches), as they say, did not have a built-in controller. Charging with too much current leads to overheating of the battery, which turns on a chain reaction: the electrolyte boils with the release of a large amount of gas, the pressure inside the sealed battery case increases several times in a split second, after which the case explodes and hot gases under pressure burst outward, and parts of the structure batteries or the phone itself are transformed into destructive elements - this is a kind of high-explosive fragmentation bomb.

Dangerous battery explosion

A lithium battery is extremely dangerous to explode. Firstly, lithium burns at a temperature of 1339 degrees - this is enough to even burn through concrete, while during an explosion, fiery drops can be sprayed in different directions, which leads to serious fires and burns.

Secondly, an explosion can occur while talking on the phone: in this case, serious injury and death are possible. For example, in 2007, fragments of an exploded Motorola phone pierced the heart of a Chinese, while a Korean phone that exploded in the same year tore his lungs and broke his spine, which also led to the death of the victim. There are also known cases of death from rupture of the cervical artery, irreparable loss of limbs, etc.

How to protect against a phone explosion

Explosions of lithium batteries are the flip side of technological progress; abandoning them is like giving up airplanes, because they sometimes crash, and traveling to Vladivostok from Moscow by train.

Nevertheless, the risk of injury from an explosion will be much lower if you carry a smartphone in a bag, talk on it through a wireless headset, and output important messages to a smart watch. Headsets and watches, however, also have lithium batteries, but 10-20 times less capacity than smartphones. Therefore, even if something happens to them, the consequences will not be fatal.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Samsung tried to finalize the new model of the smartphone, but again reports of problems began to arrive

Samsung has announced that it is stopping all sales of its new Galaxy Note smartphone due to reports that fires continue even after repairs.

The company also urged consumers who have already purchased the new model not to use it and turn off the power while experts are trying to figure out the reasons for the marriage.

What's going on?

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 7 in August. Then the smartphone was named one of the best Android phones. It was supposed to be the main competitor to Apple's iPhone 7.

However, customers soon began to receive complaints about defective batteries that explode when charged. According to Samsung, there are only 35 incidents of fire per 2.5 million devices.

But in the end, Samsung recalled the entire batch and released an improved smartphone model. Then the company assured that after the corrections made, it is safe to use the devices.

But at the moment it is already known about two cases of ignition of devices issued to consumers instead of defective ones.

Customers with an original Galaxy Note 7 or an updated replacement model are advised to turn off the device, not use it, or try to fix the defect in any way.

Samsung has asked all of its wholesale and retail partners around the world to stop selling and exchanging the Galaxy Note 7 while the investigation continues.

According to Korean media, in the near future, Samsung is likely to finally stop selling the new smartphone.

Why do they explode?

Samsung uses industry standard lithium-ion batteries - what makes them so dangerous?

It is important to understand the design features of such batteries. They contain a cathode, anode and lithium.

The cathode and anode are separated by an organic liquid electrolyte and a porous membrane separator.

Lithium moves through the pores of this membrane between the cathode and the anode.

If the battery charges too quickly, a lot of heat is generated and lithium flakes can form around the anode, which can lead to short circuits.

Other defects that can lead to short circuits include the presence of dirt in the form of a small amount of metal or tiny holes in the smartphone body, which appear after several charges as a result of thermal deformations.

How did this affect the company?

The smartphone scandal has already led to a drop in the capitalization of the Korean company.

Just two days after the start of the scandal, Samsung shares fell $ 158. Taking into account the number of shares outstanding, the company's market value fell by more than $ 22 billion in early September.

On Tuesday, stocks plummeted 8% amid news of re-recall of defective phones.

As technology analyst Andrew Milrow points out, the exploding phone scandal came at its worst moment for Samsung.

"Samsung was catching up with the competition. But this catastrophic mistake would seriously damage the company's position in the smartphone market," Milrow told the BBC.

The current fiasco, according to experts, may have an extremely negative impact on the degree of consumer confidence in the company's products.

When releasing a new device on the market, the manufacturer is obliged to thoroughly test it in all modes of operation and closely examine all of its nodes and components for reliability and adequacy.

The Samsung company, which is considered one of the authorities in the world electronics market, apparently hastened somewhat with the release of the new flagship Galaxy Note 7. Such a rush went sideways both to the manufacturer and to those users who were in a hurry to acquire a prestigious novelty.

The problem is with batteries that can explode. Given that the battery capacity of this product is substantial, it could cause serious injury if exploded in the user's hands or in a clothing pocket. In total, 35 cases were registered when the batteries of smartphones of this model exploded or caught fire, although there are probably an order of magnitude more such cases.

What to do with the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone?

Samsung has made an official statement, which clearly states that it is recalling all (!) Galaxy Note 7 devices sold. This is due to concern for buyers who may be victims of a factory malfunction. Material damage to Samsung is estimated by experts at no less than $ 1 billion, and the damage to reputation is much greater.

Exchange promotions have been launched in all markets where this smartphone has started to be sold. Anyone who has purchased the device can return it to the seller for free and then replace it with a smartphone with a safe battery. The company has launched a hotline, calling to which you can get answers on the topic of exchange or pre-order.

As for the Russian market, official sales have not yet begun here. Their start is scheduled for this fall. This means that deliveries for Russian retailers will be made from new batches that are free from an annoying and dangerous defect.