Boat Fire and Sinking in Route du Rhum

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

LFP gas or electrolyte IS NOT flammable. When will people stop promulgating nonsense about lithium.

In some extreme cases the electrolyte can ignite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07BS6QY3wI8

[Chotu]

And everybody in the other thread I have about the battery upgrade is telling me to bring them inside the boat. Yeah. No. I don’t think so. Ha ha

[aqfishing]

We had an AGM battery explode on one of our vessels. Suspect faulty alternator over charged it. Skipper had to go for stitches as it happened as he went to check what the noise was coming from the battery box. Got a piece of plastic battery casing in the cheek! Luckily his body was shielded by the battery box lid.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

In some extreme cases the electrolyte can ignite.

Ignite is not exploding though...

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Chotu

And everybody in the other thread I have about the battery upgrade is telling me to bring them inside the boat. Yeah. No. I don’t think so. Ha ha

Chotu.

Wait with that conclusion until you know what chemistry it was.
Additionally you could line your battery case with Promat or another fireproofing.

You have lots of other combustable stuff on your boat so your batteries are not worse than your gas bottle or petrol tanks.
Set it up properly and LiFePo4 is fairly safe.

I won't say that about gadget batteries like LiPo...

[Fuss]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

We had an AGM battery explode on one of our vessels. Suspect faulty alternator over charged it. Skipper had to go for stitches as it happened as he went to check what the noise was coming from the battery box. Got a piece of plastic battery casing in the cheek! Luckily his body was shielded by the battery box lid.

Why would it be suspect, it either overcharged it or it didn’t. But surely overcharging an agm cannot make it explode?? FLA , non agm or gel, batteries don’t explode when you overcharge them…I overcharge my batteries all the time and they do not explode, I think 32v is the equalising voltage and sometimes I use 33v. Of course they are always bubbling and screaming…I think they like that.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Chotu.

Wait with that conclusion until you know what chemistry it was.
Additionally you could line your battery case with Promat or another fireproofing.

You have lots of other combustable stuff on your boat so your batteries are not worse than your gas bottle or petrol tanks.
Set it up properly and LiFePo4 is fairly safe.

I won't say that about gadget batteries like LiPo...

Actually, I’m more concerned with whatever kind of offgassing can occur. I have a lot of problems with breathing and things like that. The slightest chemicals cause me trouble. Very sensitive to lots of chemicals.

So I’d rather keep all chances of chemical emissions outside the boat where they’re not going to incapacitate me on a single handed passage.

If I’m going to line my battery case with anything, let it be an electric blanket so I can use them in cold weather if necessary. But they can live outside with everything else mechanical.

I had specifically designed my boat to have all things outside that can emit any foul smell or chemicals.

[Fuss]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Actually, I’m more concerned with whatever kind of offgassing can occur. I have a lot of problems with breathing and things like that. The slightest chemicals cause me trouble. Very sensitive to lots of chemicals.
.

That’s because you are a human being Chotu, we also have the same sensitivity to offgassing that you do.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Actually, I’m more concerned with whatever kind of offgassing can occur. I have a lot of problems with breathing and things like that. The slightest chemicals cause me trouble. Very sensitive to lots of chemicals.

So I’d rather keep all chances of chemical emissions outside the boat where they’re not going to incapacitate me on a single handed passage.

If I’m going to line my battery case with anything, let it be an electric blanket so I can use them in cold weather if necessary. But they can live outside with everything else mechanical.

I had specifically designed my boat to have all things outside that can emit any foul smell or chemicals.

Chotu, the LiFePo4 are sealed batteries. They do not gas off under normal circumstances. They will only gas off in a major function default. Same applies to virtually all other types of batteries, except FLA.
In the past all battery cases, especially those for FLA, needed to have a vent above to the outside to avoid Hydrogen built-up in case of outgassing.

Might be worth adding some sort of went duct from your battery case to the outside.

Adding the heating element inside the box and lining it fire fire insulation is no problem to be combined.

We have our LiFePo4 bank on the bridgedeck in a well vented cabinet close to the cockpit. Second escapes are forward hatches.

[ItDepends]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

LFP gas or electrolyte IS NOT flammable. When will people stop promulgating nonsense about lithium.

The electrolyte solution contains diethyl carbamate, (or sometime dimethyl carbabmate) and YES it is flammable... and YES it can catch fire, and as a vapor cloud YES it can explode. It is EXTREMELY difficult to make this happen.

This is DIFFERENT than saying that LiFePO batteries are a serious and imminent fire hazard. But don't ignore the facts...

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Chotu

And everybody in the other thread I have about the battery upgrade is telling me to bring them inside the boat. Yeah. No. I don’t think so. Ha ha

Inside the boat doesn't have to mean open to the interior. They can be in the hull volume but with a small vent to the outside and airtight from the interior. That would still keep them a lot warmer than having them outside somewhere. If you wanted to get really fancy, put them on the bridge deck with some kind of emergency dump out the bottom system

[250224]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Highly unlikely that a LiFePo4 bank explodes and catches fire.
Sounds like the explosion might have been something else. Perhaps initiated by something still smoldering.
The LiFePo4 can fail when a lot of water gets into it and it can give off a lot of heat, but the battery itself is unlikely to explode.

I was thinking the same. But what else on a boat could spit out white and yellow smoke and then very rapidly burn (explode)? Except the battery nothing comes to mind ??

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by ItDepends

The electrolyte solution contains diethyl carbamate, (or sometime dimethyl carbabmate) and YES it is flammable... and YES it can catch fire, and as a vapor cloud YES it can explode. It is EXTREMELY difficult to make this happen.



This is DIFFERENT than saying that LiFePO batteries are a serious and imminent fire hazard. But don't ignore the facts...

The most common electrolyte is lithium hexafluorophosphate which is not flammable other common electrolytes are LiPF6 a lithium salt again non flammable

Winston uses LIpf6

“If the battery is burning, the internal composition may leak, vaporize or decompose and the electrolytic material will release. While battery burning, there my be fluoride(HF) and phosphide to come into being, and if the LiPF6 in the electrolyte contacts with water, it will produce fluorin-oxide and cartbon dioxide.”

The electrolyte itself does not burn. But clearly the plastic case can

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The most common electrolyte is lithium hexafluorophosphate which is not flammable other common electrolytes are LiPF6 a lithium salt again non flammable

This article by Nigel Calder makes it clear that the electrolyte is indeed flammable:
https://oceannavigator.com/pushing-b...-to-the-limit/

A couple of quotes :

‘Every lithium-ion battery currently in the marine marketplace contains a flammable electrolyte.”

“Two chemistries predominate in the marine lithium-ion world: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC). If LFP is driven into thermal runaway, it will not generate high enough temperatures to set itself on fire, whereas NMC can. For this reason, LFP has often been described as intrinsically safe and has been promoted as the only suitable chemistry for marine applications. However, as noted above, the electrolyte is still flammable and there have been some notable fires and boat losses.”

[goboatingnow]

Calder has no friend of LFp constantly saying half truths.

He is fundamentally incorrect in
“ electrolyte is still flammable “ common LFp electrolytes are not “ flammable “ in the accepted sense , LFP DOEs not contain “ flammable “ electrolyte as in our normal understanding of flammability.

Calder has added more confusion to lithium then most writers and presides in misleading people his influence in ABYC cannot be good in this regard.

To my know there has been no boat losses to LFP electrolyte flammability.

LFp cannot be driven into thermal runaway in the conventional understanding and definition of thermal runaway. Of course elements of the battery are flammable , as they are in lead acid , hell the whole boat is “ flammable “


“Abstract
Reduced safety of conventional organic electrolyte (OE) lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) during abusive failure conditions pose a technical barrier and the state of uncertainty in the market penetration of electrification of vehicles and stationary storage. To address this, we report nonflammable inorganic liquid electrolyte LiFePO4/Graphite (LFP/G) batteries for commercial high energy/power applications. The inorganic electrolyte (IE) is prepared by solvating the molten LiAlCl4 salts using liquid/gaseous xSO2 (x = 1 to 22 moles SO2, proprietary formulae is used) which shows remarkably high Li+ ion conductivity of 121 mS cm−1 at 22 °C. IE LFP/Li half-cell exhibits outstanding rate capability up to 8 C with the capacity of 74 mAh g−1 at room temperature (RT). For the first time, IE-based commercial prototype LFP/G prismatic cells with the capacity of 1.08 Ah shows ultrahigh longevity (50,000 cycles at 2 C up to 20% residual capacity) with coulombic efficiency of ∼99.99% and constant internal resistance at RT. “

Again the common electrolyte in LiFePO4 is not flammable in the conventional sense. Research in other Li variants continues to determine if flammable electrolytes can be found. But that’s for example NMC cells etc.

Batteries can burn all types can but that’s not the point here