High Potential Harm, Questionable Fire-Safety Benefit: Why Are Flame Retardants in Lithium-Ion Battery Enclosures?
The title of this post is the same as the scientific opinion to which it refers: High Potential Harm, Questionable Fire-Safety Benefit: Why Are Flame Retardants in Lithium-Ion Battery Enclosures? Lydia G. Jahl, Jolie M. Miller, Anna Shalin, Anna Soehl, Ariana Z. Spentzos, Miriam L. Diamond, and Arlene Blum Environmental Science & Technology 2025 59 (5), 2344-2347.
The opinion is open sourced, anyone can read it. It is relevant of course, to the recent Los Angeles fires, where, undoubtedly, a vast number of lithium batteries burned, releasing hydrogen fluoride, leaving toxic lithium fluoride ash, along with many other toxic compounds, among them, almost certainly and somewhat ironically, flame retardants found in products like furniture, fabrics and many other types of electronics beyond batteries.
It is notable that one of the reasons China, having become a wealthy country, banned the importation of electronic wastes for "recycling" was the presence of brominated flame retardants. (Cf. for instance, Hongmei Wang, Yuan Zhang, Qian Liu, Feifei Wang, Jing Nie, Yan Qian, Examining the relationship between brominated flame retardants (BFR) exposure and changes of thyroid hormone levels around e-waste dismantling sites, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, Volume 213, Issue 5, 2010, Pages 369-380 and Ling-Chuan Guo, Zhanlu Lv, Tingting Zhu, Guanhao He, Jianxiong Hu, Jianpeng Xiao, Tao Liu, Shengbing Yu, Jinliang Zhang, Han Zhang, Wenjun Ma, Associations between serum polychlorinated biphenyls, halogen flame retardants, and renal function indexes in residents of an e-waste recycling area, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 858, Part 1, 2023, 159746)
The magic word "recycling" often entails risks that are, as is typical of these times, dumped on poor people, and if the poor people become rich, they find other poor people on whom to dump these risks.
An excerpt of the scientific opinion cited at the beginning of this post:
We support most components of these safety standards, such as criteria around safe circuitry and charging. However, in this Viewpoint, we question requirements that lead to the addition of flame retardants in plastic battery enclosures. Historically, flame retardant use to meet flammability standards has resulted in documented health risks without demonstrated fire-safety benefits for products such as children’s products, furniture, and electronics... (3,4)
Flammability Standards Do Not Specify Flame Retardants but Often Lead to Their Use
Standards incorporating requirements for lithium-ion battery material flammability are being quickly adopted by various authorities (from local to international) and often require that plastic battery enclosures resist a small open flame for a short period of time. Although the use of chemical flame retardants is not explicitly specified in such standards, the usual way to meet these open-flame tests is to add flame retardants to the plastics. Typical electronics enclosure plastics that meet a common flammability rating usually contain between 10% and 20% by weight flame retardant. (5) The identities and concentrations of the chemicals used are rarely disclosed, resulting in the potential adverse impacts of standards being overlooked.
Benefit of Flame Retardants in Plastic Battery Enclosures?
Publicly available research is needed on whether flame-retarded plastic battery enclosures actually reduce real-world fire risks. Clear evidence should answer the following questions: Are events simulated by the flammability standard tests (i.e., small flames applied to a battery enclosure for a brief time) likely to occur during realistic uses? Would a short circuit within a flame-retarded plastic enclosure be less likely to lead to battery thermal runaway compared to a non-flame-retarded plastic or metal enclosure?...
The Trump administration, a horror of the worst sort, will do nothing to check on or address these residues in the ashes of LA. It might make his Maggotcy, King Eloon the First (and hopefully last) look bad.
The ashes of Pacific Palisades, where it is certain that many people bought into the highly questionable belief that electric cars are "green" are surely a toxic nightmare.
Happy President's Day, even if the current President is a fascist asshole.
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