Recently, Samsung announced the recall of its newly-launched Galaxy Note 7 due to exploding batteries. There are now explanations why the smartphone's battery is exploding and blazes.
It was reported that there are already 35 incidents worldwide where the Galaxy Note 7 overheated which prompts Samsung to recall all sold units. It is estimated that out of 2.5 million manufactured smartphones, 1 million are already sold. The company has put a hold in its production and shipment and is currently collaborating with different government agencies as well as wireless provider globally to offer refunds and replacements for the affected phones, according to CNET.
The Galaxy Note 7 battery is such a big catastrophe and irony for Samsung due to the fact that it happened just in time when Apple iPhone 7 and its other devices are about to launch at its September event. This isn't the first time that such phone battery recall was made. Nokia also recalled in 2009, about 46 million phone batteries due to explosions.
Based on the unpublished initial report provided to Korea's Agency for Technology and Standards, the device and gadget company had a manufacturing miscalculation that "placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells" which made the positive and negative poles meet.
"The defect was revealed when several contributing factors happened simultaneously, which included sub-optimized assembly process that created variations of tension and exposed electrodes due to insufficient insulation tape," a Samsung representative," said a Samsung representative.
Amid the exploding battery issues, MIT materials chemistry Professor Don Sadoway has two notions. First, it might be that the positive and negative terminals dig right into the separator and be able to touch. Second, it might be that sponge-like separator that got squeezed,The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to the professor, the separator permits the liquid electrolyte to move through the tiny openings that connect the battery's positive and negative sides though it separates the two terminals. "If they press really hard, they constrict the pores, the resistance goes up and you generate more heat," he added.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Galaxy Note 7 exploding batteries, Samsung said that it will work on a software update that regulates how much charge the smartphone should have. The software is making an effort to lessen the danger of igniting phones by regulating the maximum battery charge to 60 percent.
The software is going to be available in South Korea starting Sept. 20. But it is not certain if the said software patch will be used in the US in the near term.
