Exploding cell phone blamed for farmer's death

8/19/2010 11:45 AM EDT

Well, this has to be a first. I would say, this is the first time we have heard of a mobile/cell phone explosion causing injuries severe enough to lead to death. Can someone recall a previous of incident of mortal injuries anywhere in the world due to a cell/mobile phone blast in the last 30 years or so?

The amount of energy stored in a phone battery is large enough to cause quite a powerful explosion. Therefore, the possibility of mortal injuries to the individual remained theoretically open all the while. The specific trigger which caused the explosion is something that would have to be given technical investigation.

May be someone can lay down the technicalities of a trigger? Or may be a failure analysis supported with numbers?

8/19/2010 12:03 PM EDT

Over the years there have been reports of injuries due to exploding cell phone batteries, and some deaths that were originally blamed on such explosions turned out to be due to other causes.

In some cases, the root cause has been the use of counterfeit batteries, which is one reason battery management ICs now include battery authentication features.

We will need to wait for more details about this particular incident before any real conclusions can be drawn.

8/19/2010 1:33 PM EDT

OK, time for a wikipedia moment. Energy density of a Li ion battery is about 0.5MJ/kg. Thermite is 4 MJ/kg, Nitroglycerin is 6.38MJ/kg. So it appears as though under "ideal" conditions, a battery could cause some damage (not surprising). Figuring out what set of events would be required for such an even is not easy...
Details may be hard to come by because I smell lawsuit...

8/19/2010 3:42 PM EDT

It seems that the mobile phones are not subjected to stringent stress tests under extreme environmental conditions. Counterfeit batteries and phones are other possible reasons. More regulation is needed, particularly in third world countries, to ensure public safety from such incidents.
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8/19/2010 3:57 PM EDT

I gotta wonder who was on the other end of the call (and what were they talking about)?

8/19/2010 4:30 PM EDT

According to http://www.cpkb.net/wiki/Nokia_BL-5CA_battery, that battery weighs 18g. So, at 0.5MJ/Kg, we're talking 9KJ of energy. That is, "at most," since they said he'd been talking on the phone for a while, and some of that battery mass must be inert (plastic case, contacts, etc.).

So, is that the equivalent (1/2 mv^2, is it?) of an 180Kg weight hitting you at 10m/s? Well, I don't know for certain that that would be lethal, but it could definitely do some damage.

I'm not a battery expert, but I can't immediately think what could cause ... or even allow ... a battery to expend all of its energy that rapidly.

I really doubt if this is cause for cell phone recalls, but have to wonder about electric cars, however!

8/19/2010 4:48 PM EDT

IIRC putting a small bomb in a phone was used by the Israelis to assassinate one of the leaders of Black September. How big was this phone?

8/19/2010 5:04 PM EDT

I read sometime back that Nokia had been recalling some phone because they blast under some conditions. But I really wonder if that can cause death.

8/19/2010 5:33 PM EDT

Interesting case.
From http://www.1728.com/energy.htm
I see a generic 0.22 bullet, (2gms) and 440m/s solves to 193.6 Joules.

Note that the Electrical Energy, is not going to be the same as explosive/ballistic or thermal energy, once burning starts.

8/20/2010 12:59 AM EDT

Very strange, I can understand burns but death I feel is quite difficult with that kind of energy. Surely there is more to it than the burnt cell phone.

8/20/2010 4:50 AM EDT

It is hard to understand how a mobile phone malfunction could cause death. It should be considered that when the phone is held to the ear it is also held close to the jugular vein. If someone was unlucky and a sharp fragment of phone casing cut the vein could that be responsible for fatal bleeding?

8/20/2010 10:45 AM EDT

James Etheridge from Nokia's media team posted a comment at the following URL that suggests lightning may have contributed to the incident: http://www.intomobile.com/2010/08/19/indian-man-killed-by-exploding-mobile-phone/

But all in all, I think Feory's last paragraph summarizes things best at this point.

8/20/2010 2:04 PM EDT

In theory, it's possible -- But not very probable. SNOPES has debunk most of them for us. Here is one thatfits the same picture:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/cellcharge.asp
KW

8/20/2010 2:31 PM EDT

Having conducted two forensic analyses of lithium ion battery fires, I know the damage that can be caused these cells. Most of these fires are slow burning, however, and not likely to produce enough concussive force to kill.

8/20/2010 3:48 PM EDT

This story does merit a 'hmm'. My bet is that the battery in the phone would have been on the order of 1AH at 3.7v so ~4Wh or so, at most 14KJ full-charge. I'd also wager that the correct way to calculate the total available energy is not by the theoretical LiPo or Lion battery energy density, but the actual for that battery, multiplied by the state of charge as others have indicated.

And the next question would be, how much of the total energy can be got at if it's released all at once. A reasonable guess might be half or less, since as any electro-chem person will tell you, the rated AH of a typical battery is usually expressed with a discharge current of C/10, or maybe C/5. And the quicker you pull out power, say in a dead short, the less total power there will be to pull out. And here we're talking C/zero!

And the last mitigating factor, if Lithium batteries could ever be made to behave reliably as high-explosives, or even slow explosives like gunpowder, both of which are very specialized sorts of energy storage and retrieval mechanisms, they would probably be often used in that way, even if their energy density was only 1/12 that of nitroglycerine, since they're so much easier to get and carry around. Considering that the average laptop battery is perhaps 50 times the size of a phone battery, and therefore a dodgy 'exploding' one might be several times as bad, one would think that if there was any significant statistical risk of deadly explosive energy discharge occurring with ANY lithium battery, they would never be allowed on aircraft. And nowadays, lithium batteries are probably the one carry-on item that absolutely has, in one form or another. Certainly an interesting story.

8/20/2010 4:58 PM EDT

Some interesting analysis but without more information I suspect that we will not be able to come up with a good answer. I suspect that we are missing some critical information such as the previously mentioned lightning strike, the exit wound, hoax (think prius on L.A. freeway) or some other cause.

8/20/2010 7:41 PM EDT

I can easily imagine getting a nasty burn from a failing battery pack, I have seen impressive melt-downs. But the only actual explosion, which did destroy the pack, was from a battery being seriously overcharged. So perhaps there was a charger involved, which we will no doubt never hear about, since the charger manufacturer does not have nearly as deep pockets as the phone and battery makers. But the fact remains that the simplest way to make a battery explode is to overcharge it hard.

8/20/2010 7:44 PM EDT

Electric cars will be different, they will have so many safety features that it will be very difficult to service them. The deaths will come from people attempting to steal the $12,000 dollar battery pack. We will undoubtedly see a lot of that as they become more common.

8/20/2010 11:49 PM EDT

This is the orignial article appeared in the times of india, it says that there was another incidences of the same kind before as well,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Youth-dies-in-Kota-as-cellphone-explodes/articleshow/6328300.cms

8/21/2010 5:41 AM EDT

I would like to see more info on this. More specifically on the kind of injuries he received. The article is too vague to give us any indication that an explosion from the cell phone is to blame. At the least there would be some kind of burn, and to critically injure there would have had to be a projectile (fragment) that had enough energy to damage the tissue.

At this point everything is just speculation..

8/21/2010 5:39 PM EDT

It appears that the "rest of the story" may be starting to unfold that makes the cell phone hazard seem a little less immediate. "Our primary conclusion, based on post mortem reports and forensic investigation, is that the Nokia 1209 was struck by lightning and then exploded," Deputy Superintendent of Kota Police Chandra Sheel said. ["Cell phone explosion kills man, authorities think" By Sumnima Udas, CNN, August 20, 2010 10:15 a.m. EDT].

By the way, I was interested to see this EETimes article is now the 4th of over 155 articles posted on Google news.

8/21/2010 6:44 PM EDT

I heard of such stories in the past (and warnings against answering a call while the phone is being charged) but nothing conclusive has come to the open.
In theory, there is enough energy inside a mobile phone to cause real damage (as many demonstrated above) but for such energy to dissipate instantly causing serious injury or even death is not plausible to me.

8/21/2010 8:45 PM EDT

Wow, guess I should check my life insurance policy to see if an exploding cell phone is considered an accident and covered by the policy, or an act of God and not covered. Maybe cell phone companies will expand their cell phone insurance coverage to cover "accidental explosions"? If we can find out what makes them explode, could be an interesting covert weapon to use against drug lords, terrorists, etc.?

8/22/2010 12:16 AM EDT

Looks like this news got a lot of attentions as it sounds new and improbable to most myself included.

I think, no matter if the death is caused by the cell phone or not, this incident calls for a better power protection design in all mobile devices.

8/22/2010 12:44 PM EDT

While rare, truly catastrophic failures of Li-ion batteries, i.e., explosions, are well-known and documented, so I do not think that this unfortunate person's apparent death, although disturbing to contemplate, is a priori implausible.

A widely-cited news story about Li-ion battery fire risks on passenger and cargo aircraft ran in USA Today a week or so ago.

Speaking for myself, I believe there is a public safety need to mitigate fire hazards associated with advanced Li-ion batteries, particularly when carried onboard aircraft in passengers' luggage, or when large numbers of such batteries are shipped in densely packed arrays placed inside various types of containers stored in aircraft cargo holds during flight.

Interestingly, our company has applied specialized theoretical knowledge on a practical level to try to understand the underlying causes of certain anomalous fires and explosions that occasionally occur in smaller lithium-ion batteries as well as in large multi-battery packs. In doing so, we have uncovered what may be a new class of potentially serious, previously unrecognized safety risks arising from Lithium metal dendrite structures that can ‘grow’ over time inside Li-ion batteries. A new paper by academic researchers published in May 2010 supports our deep concerns about the involvement of dendrites in catastrophic Li-ion battery failures (please see R. Bhattacharyya et al., "In situ NMR observation of the formation of metallic Lithium microstructures in Lithium batteries," Nature Materials 9 pp. 504 - 510). Details of our thoughts on this new source of concern have been publicly released in a 68-slide technical presentation on SlideShare.net titled, "Low Energy Neutron Reactions (LENRs) in Advanced Batteries and Other Condensed Matter Environments --- Could LENRs be involved in some Li-ion battery fires?" See URL=
http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/cfakepathlattice-energy-llc-len-rs-in-liion-battery-firesjuly-16-2010

8/23/2010 3:50 PM EDT

When struck by lightning [see DrQuine comment 8/21/2010 5:39 PM EDT], people get hurt. I don't think being hit by lightning qualifies as an anomalous explosion - nor would I place primary blame for the injury on the cell phone.

8/24/2010 3:02 PM EDT

Considering that India is still a developing nation with more than a billion people, the law of averages has come true in this case. As a flourishing telecom market, India unfortunately is also a big market for gray and substandard mobile handsets and batteries.

Incidents of battery explosion due to overheating are quiet common in Asia, especially India and China. The mentioned region is in the desert state of Rajasthan where severe temperatures of 120 degree F are not uncommon. Coupled with the heat, batteries are capable of causing minor explosions. The results of these explosions are usually minor but can be fatal in case the mobile phone is held close to the ear and cause severe damage to the human brain.

I do not know whether this incident is real or not. I’ve read several similar stories of people in India receiving “Death calls”, incoming calls where the caller number appears in dark red color (resembling blood). You answer the call and the rest is history.

My sympathies go out to his family and friends.

-Keith Schaub

8/24/2010 4:12 PM EDT

1.How can a battery in cell phone be overcharged even if it is plugged in to the mains for hours and hours? Are there no overcharge protection circuits in the cell phones?
2. It is very unlikely that lightning would cause bleeding wounds.
3. Explosion of batteries is not unheard of. Multinational distributors of laptops should have more data on such events.
4. Explosion of battery in the ear could cause serious and fatal internal bleeding.
Ravindran

8/26/2010 11:01 PM EDT

Putting the energy of lighting into almost any electronic device will more than likely cause it to explode. Yes, all cells that I have seen have protection devices but like all electronic devices some of them will fail. Exposing cells or batteries to high voltage static discharge is one way to increase the probability of a protection circuit failure. Most lithium cell also have a safety vent so that they will not explode, they often vent very rapidly when they do vent. I say this with some experience having produced several such events.

8/29/2010 10:24 AM EDT

With the abundant and accepted fake batteries (Nokia batteries being a popular sell), Indian users will sooner or later come across such hazards. The fact that such matters don't lead to serious inquiries, being misattributed doesn't help the technology community in any way. I mean come on, can one not identify a blast wound from a lightning strike. Does that mean that the lightning struck and didn't cause any other symptoms in the body?

8/30/2010 3:16 PM EDT

I recall reading and watching an incident with a DELL PC (http://gizmodo.com/182257/dell-laptop-explodes-in-flames).
There is a size difference, but the evidence is irrefutable.

The Question is: will cell phone vendors take not and implement smart cells in their phones?

Assuming that thermal run-away can always be prevented by electrical disconnect, and mechanical features to reduce risk of explosion.