how are you guys storing your lithium batteries? They are practically all over my house and garage, due to all the appplications. Ryobi, camera equipment, laptops, gadgets, backup batteries, radio batteries. My house is just covered with portable fire-starters.
Reports of laptop batteries exploding while operating or charging weren't infrequent 15-20 years ago.
Mechanical abuse isn't the only way to get a Li-ion fire. Failing to properly balance cells in series is electrical abuse with two likely outcomes, both of which can cause thermal runaway (fire/explosion):
The normal operating range for Li-ion cells is 2.7-4.2V. Discharging one below 2.7V causes chemical breakdown inside the cell that results in an internal short circuit. Attempting to charge an internally-shorted cell causes substantial heat generation, potentially leading to thermal runaway.
The other outcome is reverse charging, which occurs during discharge. If one cell in a series is performing substantially worse than others, or the charging circuit doesn't ensure the entire series is in the same state of charge, it can actually drop below zero volts, then get charged in reverse by the other cells. This rapidly leads to bad chemistry and thermal runaway.
It's simple to prevent both of these problems by having the battery management system monitor the voltage of every cell individually, but that costs more.
the issue is that even big brands have no name cells in them. I've got dozens of earbuds, controllers, lights with embedded cells and who knows where they were produced.
it's impossible to control the whole supply chain as a consumer
