Laptop battery recall may affect makers other than Dell too
Anand Parthasarathy Currently used Lithium-ion cells may be prone to explosions - if they are defective CAUTIONARY TALE: A Dell laptop exploding during a conference in Japan in June 2006. The suspected culprit, the lithium-ion battery, is on the screen at right. Bangalore: "The Case of the Exploding Laptop" - that sounds like a Perry Mason mystery. But this is one that has been solved, before anyone was singed. Dell Computers' recall on Tuesday of Sony batteries that went into four million of its laptop computers, may not be the end of the story - merely the end of Episode One. Over one million of these have been sold outside the U.S. All four brands with the suspect batteries - Latitude, Inspiron, XPS and Precision - are marketed in India, where Dell is the fifth largest vendor of laptops. It shipped over 42,000 units in 2005-06, according to Dataquest. However, not all the batteries sold with the four models may be defective. Dell has set up a website to help customers identify returnable batteries by their serial number: www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx Same technology In June, the U.K. technology website TheInquirer.net carried dramatic photos sent in by a delegate at a conference in Japan, where a Dell laptop spontaneously burst into flames with a bang. Since then, many portable PC makers are known to be grappling with the potential problem. Almost all manufacturers use the same technology today for both laptops and mobile phone batteries: Lithium-ion. This process perfected in 1991 by Sony, which supplies Dell as well as others, uses carbon as one electrode and a metal oxide as the other. The electrolyte or liquid that sets off the reaction is a salt of Lithium. This is an efficient process to deliver a big current in a small battery size. But as hundreds of blogs will testify, the industry has known for at least three years now that it is a rather unsafe process: If there are tiny impurities in the electrolyte, and the battery heats up owing to continuous use, Lithium metal tends to form - and this can `short' the positive and negative terminals, causing a spark. Other laptop vendors may have to face up to the problem of quality control in lithium battery manufacturing processes, because Dell is not the only one selling these products. While the same Lithium ion technology also fuels almost all the world's nearly two billion mobile phones, it is less likely to pose a danger to their users. Because, the current drawn by phones is a fraction of what laptops demand. The chances of overheating are, therefore, less. Inevitably, this will lay open the entire issue of Lithium-ion battery technology. There has been a lot of research in Lithium-polymer and other possibly safer variants including some super-small nanotechnology materials. Recent incidents of incendiary laptops may help accelerate such developments. This may also force some rethinking on laptop use by passengers on civilian aircraft - or at least the use of built-in batteries. Many airlines provide power outlets in business and first class and this may be the only safe way to use laptops in flight - until the IT industry comes up with fool-proof battery technology to fuel portable computing. Regards, Shadab Husain Mo:9335206224
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