How your Smartphone Battery could explode!

Cellphone batteries are primarily made from Lithium, which like any other batteries have a +ive plate, and a -ive plate. Now, the smaller the form factor, the more cramped these batteries needs to be. Now, if there is some metallic substance, between these two plates, short circuit can occur, causing the battery to generate a lot of heat, or may act like a detonator, which can ultimately bursts into flames. That sounds like a great movie plot! But fortunately for us, this does not happens too often, and you are unlikely to be a victim of this.

So, what do you do to avoid it?

Most of us have the habit of putting the cellphone on charge for the night before going to sleep. This was the case of Kirsten Zastrow, and this is what happened:

Source:Mashable

Kristen’s Samsung Nexus S burst into flames, and fortunately for her, she was not sleeping near the phone. She was not using the stock battery, but a 3rd party one, from Anker which outsources their manufacturing to a factory in China. It was cheaper than the stock batteries, and gave longer battery life than the stock battery. Unfortunately for her, a small savings ended up with a lot of extra expenses.

Most of these cases, the batteries are mostly made by 3rd party manufacturers from China, and there are no guarantees that they would work as per specifications.

Here is what you do to avoid such incidents:

1. Avoid buying cheaper battery replacements for your phone, camera, video games, MP3 players etc.
2. Avoid charging your phones for long hours. Once the battery indicator goes green, simply unplug it.
3. Avoid exposing your phone to sudden heat or cold. You might leave your phone inside a refrigerator on a warm & humid day accidently 🙂
4. Always use the prescribed charger to charge your smartphone batteries.
5. If the battery is removable, always ensure that the connectors are dust free.

Please note: The intent of this article is not to scare anyone, and to best describe this article would be ” A general awareness campaign”.