Most of us have seen the videos. Batteries exploding with a bright flash of light and/or violent jets of flames. Is it due to pressure inside the battery or simply the materials/chemicals they’re made of?
In: Chemistry
The materials/chemicals inside. Most of the batteries you see violently exploding are lithium ion batteries. Lithium, and all of the elements in the same column on the periodic table, are known to be *highly* reactive with water. Explosively reactive in fact. So, the instant it is exposed to air, it violently reacts with the moisture in the air and then you see a pretty and dangerous explosion!
It’s a chemical reaction. There are tons of different kinds of batteries, but in a nutshell they all work by combining chemicals that want to react with each other and produce electricity as a result. Usually the chemical reaction is restricted by the device they are installed in, a laptop has safeguards that ‘limit’ the battery from releasing a ton of electricity and frying the computer. When batteries get damaged, or a produced improperly, the restrictions can be removed and the battery can discharge rapidly, releasing a lot of heat and energy all at once.
Batteries contain volatile chemicals. Like, literally containing it. When introduced to air (or anything else it was never designed to encounter), you get an adverse reaction.
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