More problems with wet lithium ion batteries - Port of Miami fire

A recent container explosion in the Port of Miami has been linked to salvaged EVs that were not supposed to be shipped. Two of the four EVs had certificates of destruction, and the other two had salvage titles. Posted here due to the attractiveness of hacking car batteries for marine EV purposes. Not a good idea. Immersed batteries pose a serious threat. So far, none of our lithium golf carts that spent three days under water during hurricane Helene have grenaded, but they are outside where they can vent. Explosive gas buildup is suspected in Miami.

 

Some guys just do it .




Those disasters looks bad although disasters always happend . Modern battery cells chemistry and physics are kind of rocket science . If I will take electric propulsion serious I need to know as much as possible of exact type battery cell . And I don't trust Saftey Data Sheet .Some research need to be done on exact battery production series. And salt water enviroment will need special solutions and maybe special fail -safe features.

 

Sure lithium and water don't have a good mix. Utube is full of lithium/water burning video.
EV battery are not designed to be submerged as they are +/- well design to be watertight. I would say IP66 for most EV battery I saw/dismantle.
There is also ton of video where you can see an EV crossing 2-3 feets of water on the road. But those video don't show the problems EV battery have few weeks/years later cause of this short trip underwater.
IP rating can be ever worst after a crash, of course, or even simply with time when rust/oxidation and dry/crack seals start to play role.

It's why it's so important to design and build (or buy) a IP67 or even IP68 battery box for boat batteries.

 

Next up: Videos of gasoline catastrophes...

 

@dustman Yes, a reasonable point. But we've had since 1866 to work on the issue, and some progress has been made. Wide familiarity with the stuff in non-marine applications also helps in the common-sense department. By 1946, experience began to be codified (US CFR Title 46). Small craft powered by gasoline engines flew under the radar until about 1986. Gasoline outboards were widely available from about 1910 onwards. Johnson introduced the Sea Horse with the first remote fuel tank in 1949. A friend of mine was the first person to run the Great Loop (Gene Espy in a 12' johnboat powered by a '49 Sea Horse).

The first industrial application of Lion batteries was for an extended backup power supply for the Minuteman III missiles in Minot. It quickly became obvious that there were problems, and putting a ton of them around a nuclear tipped solid fuel rocket was a really bad idea. They used about a railroad car's worth of liquid nitrogen on each silo to freeze the battery bank and remove them. They were stored in munition silos in Utah until they self discharged or failed. I became chief of engineering at Minot just as the removal process was coming to an end.

But there are some basic differences between the two. Gasoline is quite benign left to itself. It will vaporize quite readily, but it is nothing more complicated than a mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that can be stored in pretty much any liquid tight container (okay, not Styrofoam, but we know that). Importantly, containers can be inspected for integrity and suitability. Getting gasoline to ignite requires some engineering (or a lightning strike). By contrast, batteries are composites that rely on their internal structure for integrity. These can't be inspected easily; and sensing, monitoring, and automatic isolation of lithium cells isn't a universal BMS feature. Nor are effective fire containment and suppression systems standard for battery bank installations. All of these are being worked on presently, and are available now in early production versions. But they roughly double the size, weight, and cost of a battery bank. That probably won't change much.

So in addition to the fact that humanity has nearly a century more experience living with gasoline powered contraptions, there are physical differences between gasoline fuel storage and delivery; and battery fuel storage and delivery, that make battery systems of equivalent power and energy more complicated and less DIY-friendly than gasoline.

Consider propane, where you either throw the tank away after ten years or get it reinspected at a licensed shop. Maybe that's the route for high-power battery banks as well. But how would you enforce it?

 

The dangers associated with Lithium batteries are exponentially greater due to improper application, installation, maintenance, and the “they haven’t grenaded yet, so they must be okay” mentality.

You should open and inspect those batteries philSweet.

Most drop in lithium batteries are built using vented boxes, and condensation alone due to cycling of the cells can draw in moisture that will corrode contacts and components.

The cells may be sealed, but I doubt the rest is.

If they were submerged, there’s a very good chance there is moisture inside.

Couple that with dissimilar metals, DC current, BMS circuit boards, heating and cooling from cycling, etc., and you have all the ingredients for failure of the built in protection and/or the battery in general.

Maybe you’ll get lucky and the system will just go dead, or maybe you won’t and it will catch on fire due to high resistance from corrosion or cell over run due to a failed BMS, and the cart will burn to the ground.

My point is I believe a lot of incidents have happened because people take risks when they should know better, and other times people don’t know better because the industry sells this tech as a drop-in connect and forget about it product, when in reality it requires maintenance and monitoring and additional fail safes.

Using car batteries in many ways is a better option for electric boat propulsion, not a more dangerous one, because they are built to a much higher standard.

It’s the rest of the installation and integration that IMO introduces additional risk that should be minimized.

 

The ABYC published standards regarding Lithium Ion Batteries: Standard “E 13 Lithium Ion Batteries” which offers guidance regarding appropriate battery chemistry, installation, and system design. This guidance is provided as a supplement to Standard E10, Storage Batteries, and E11 AC and DC Electrical Systems for Boats. Although I can’t find specific reference to it any more, the lithium Ion battery chemistry that was recommended for marine use was/is Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, as they are less likely to experience thermal runaway than other lithium ion chemistries.

I would be leery of repurposing automotive batteries for marine use; chemistry aside, I think it would be challenging to live up to the ABYC standard, or even the spirit of the standard. In automotive applications it may be relatively easy to “pull over and abandon a vehicle by the roadside with little peril when a situation requires it; not so easy in a boat on a large body of water.

 

I use Lifepo4 small 12 v power bank more than 10 years. They are reliable but rather on the weak side if we consider energy/maximum current available .

Comparing car to boat there are some boat advantages . Usualy we have lot more space available to place battery , sometimes better than under child's seat .We have infinite water access for cooling and fire supression.As @phillSweet mentioned above cells can't be inspected easily , we should treat them as explosive/highly inflammatory/difficult to extinguish devices. With some solutions it's possible to reduce life/health thretening situations.

 

Water has a violent reaction with the Lithium salts which results in the rapid generation of Hydrogen, a very flammable gas. Fire extiguishers are made for different applications. A boat with Li Ion batteries should have one that is designed for that use.

 

Yes , that is problem . But can you imagine battery compartment that have water input and output . Massive waterflow can dissipate heat outside that is most dangerous factor.

 

The problem is what to do with the hydrogen that is generated. I suppose a spark proof vent would work.

 

I think nothing . It will be cold rocket engine for a while .

 

What is a cold rocket engine?

 

e.g. mentos and cola.
Idea of use massive flow of water to dissipate heat is one way to fight thermal runaway. Water and gases will leave battery chamber outside the hull . I can't see many problems here.

 

Part of the problem is that people keep making comparisons to gasoline. A far better analog is solid rocket fuel. Gasoline is only fuel, and is (comparatively) easy to separate from the needed oxidizer. A Lion cell has all necessary chemical components for a stoichiometric reaction included in one handy package. So why would a fire extinguisher be expected to put it out? Since the fuel and oxidizer can't be separated it becomes necessary to remove the third part of the fire triangle: spark. Presumably by absorbing enough heat to stop the reaction. Typically water fills that role admirably, but in this particular case, less so.