A new crash recently in Alabama, but a reminder to something that we all know. Burning Teslas are far more difficult to extinguish than any other car.
A new crash recently in Alabama, but a reminder to something that we all know. Burning Teslas are far more difficult to extinguish than any other car.
It’s not self oxidizing. Old lithium cobalt oxide batteries were, lithium iron phosphate batteries aren’t.
Phosphate will decompose into phosphate ions and oxygen given enough energy. The energy of the P–O bond is greater than Co–O but ultimately means that LFP batteries are also self-oxidizing but less so than lithium cobalt oxide
Reference
Find me any proof of any lifepo4 cells having a self-oxidizing event. Spoiler alert: you can’t, because there’s no reaction that can happen with lifepo4 that will strip oxygen out of phosphate. UL listed companies sell lifepo4 batteries as non-combustible. I highly recommend looking into modern battery chemistry, becase they’re way safer than people think.
There’s plenty of proof in academic literature. FePO4 is quite stable because of the quirks in iron’s valance up to about 500C. But the combination of of lithium skews the valance effects at high temperatures to start losing oxygen at 250C.
Please review the following literature for more information:
How much oxygen are we talking here? I’m guessing not much, as they wouldn’t be allowed to sell lifepo4 batteries as non combustible if they had any real chance of causing a self sustaining fire. So level with me so I don’t have to trudge through a bunch of academic papers: How much oxygen do they mention?
The stoichometry comes out with 2:1 moles of lfp to diatomic oxygen which is significant
The combustibility you’re referring to is a legal definition not a scientific one