Yeh this is how we react to things, when I set my grill alight, I just dealt with fire, threw burning bacon into sink , ran the tap til flames stopped, and casually started eating the wet bacon,
My best guess for why it went up in flames is because the metal hydride was lithium borohydride. Which reacted vigorously with the water in the air, causing it to produce hydrogen and heat, which then caught fire.
@@mikeoxlong1395 Generally yes, as long as the battery remains airtight it's not gonna react. That said, handle your batteries carefully and replace them at appropriate intervals lest they stop being airtight and subsequently become firestarters.
You're so honest dude, most youtubers nowadays would just put "I ALMOST DIED ETC ETC ETC" in their titles, but you didn't, your attitude is very oldschool and good towards RUclips.
From what I was taught 40 some odd years ago, they manufacture these cells completely devoid of a charge, and the process of charging them expands the electrolyte and compresses everything together. If so, then charged batteries have more outward pressure on the casing than depleted ones. It was always an urban legend that some batteries had a measurable difference in circumference between charged and depleted states, though I've never tested this.
i discarded that as temperature fluctuations because i move between outdoors and buildings often and it's really cold where i work. Hence need a lot of batteries for different appliances.
Pro tip: Once you get the metal started with snips, switch to needle nose pliers, and roll the metal right around the pliers. Kind of like the old food tin openers. It works well.
Bonus: If successful, this method presents additional fun when trying to remove it from the pliers without getting chemicals inside the fierce and deep cuts it gives your fingers
Normal people: I dont want to take batteries apart that sounds like a terrible idea. "Scientists": Taking batteries apart because I'm curious. But I'll be wearing safety glasses and got a fire extinguisher on hand, and I'm doing this outside. Clive: These could go thermonuclear on me but hey I got a pie dish somewhere around here I think...what can go wrong, right?
Just watched some guy play around inside a microwave with it plugged in, and standing in bare feet on concrete. He did shock himself, rthen pointed out all of his safety errors, but no doubt continued on. Reminds me of Mythbusters, where the big one would tell everyone how dangerous it, but then continue to do dangerous stuff, despite electrocuting himself more times than U could count.
Clive: *sees something that could either kill him or burn his house down, or both, and continues doing whatever he was doing with the dangerous device Clive: that's interesting
@@b-chroniumproductions3177 That reminded me of the before times when I played IL-2 Sturmovik with a friend. I was piloting a Stuka and my buddy was tail gunning. We went in for a dive bomb on some British airfield and got pretty heavy flak directed our way. Right as I was about to drop the payload the plane jerked a bit, but I kept on target. My friend just nonchalantly goes: "Um. I don't mean to complain but..." and I go in to 3rd person view. I see the entire tail end of the plane gone and my gunners feet dangling out in the wind. I forgot to parachute out, I was laughing so hard. :D
Having worked with these batteries often, seeing you wrap the flammable bits in paper towels and setting them aside nearly made me have a heart attack. Kinda glad one popped off proper though, let you know what could happen before you just left them there or pitched them in the trash. Cheers for the educational vid, stay safe mate.
It was "educational". That was a very sleepless night clearing up stuff in the vicinity where fragments of the pyrophoric material has potentially pinged to.
"I think that we have all learned a very important lesson tonight. At least those of us who are still alive" -- The principal in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Thanks for the video, Clive.
Was running fire duty for a welding job in a plating factory once when a stray spark landed on a super old wooden, chemical soaked step stool. That one little spark started up a tiny fire which wouldn't go out from being stomped on, sprayed with water, or even being sprayed with an extinguisher. The bench got drag outside and pitched into the alley where it burned down to nothing. Moral of the story, fire gets weird when you start throwing chemicals into the mix.
British eccentricity at its finest. Taking apart batteries and having a very British reaction to something randomly combusting. Why youtube sent me here i have no idea but i salute Clive
Famous Last Words: "I have largely discharged these cells for safety reasons, so that they don't go thermonuclear on me." - Big Clive Jan. 1, 19xx - May 13, 2017
Damned! I have many of these Lidl-cells! Didn't open them, but what if one leaks and gets into contact with air? And I'm also doubtful about the quality because some cells died after maybe ten chargings.
+Juri Vlk Are they chargeable even? At our Lidl in that Netherlands they have non chargeable and chargeable, and aside from a little word on the outside of the battery, they look exactly the same.
The bigger holes let bigger electrons through. It saves the big electrons until the end and hence why it doesn't self discharge. You can refill them by pouring finely milled electrons back into them in a tap water solution.
Where can I buy the electrons required to refill my batteries? I've checked Ebay and poundland and have come up blank. Also, do I need a special funnel?
"That's definitely not something you want to stick in your bin, is it?" I think this is the reason why people are warned to dispose of batteries properly, lol.
@@gasgas2689 I don't know the specifics, but I know that some steps involve slicing the ends off and other disassembly, bath of mild acid to clean and separate stuff, a lot of crushing and sieving, and finally melting the metal down. And like all waste processing of metals, the types of metals separate themselves when smelted: some float, others sink.
So many factors can contribute to a battery exploding/catching fire. But just out the gate, they have all the main elements needed to start a self-sustained fire.
The "metal hydride" in NiMH is one of a class of chemicals where hydrogen is ionically bonded to a metal (as opposed to the usual covalent bonding that hydrogen participates in). Some examples of metal hydrides are Sodium Hydride, Lithium Hydride, Lithium Aluminum Hydride. I don't know which one is typically used in NiMH cells. Most of these chemicals will spontaneously catch fire in air if exposed for long enough.
It's not nickel hydride. Nickel oxide hydroxide is the cathode. The anode is typically a mixed rare-earth hydride such as cerium and lanthanum hydrides along with some others mixed in. Not all nickel-metal hydride cells have the exact same anode material, but it's generally some sort of rare-earth hydride mixture. This is part of why they are so much more expensive than simple alkaline batteries (not just because they're rechargeable, they are actually much more expensive to make).
Identifying what the metal mesh is made of is important for recycling and or science purposes. I have re-used the Zinc metal wrap inside of regular batteries for other science experiments. I am now wondering about that metal sheet you pulled out! batteries work off a chemical reaction... For Alkaline... It is a caustic reagent with zinc... Then there are those with an acid reagent and again a metal wrap... Again usually zinc in the regular batteries... Please identify the metal mesh wrap!
You should open Ni-MH batteries under a fume extraction hood. The negative electrode has a steel mesh filled with various metal hydride (including nickel hydrite). This hydrites do store hydrogen gas 900 times their volume (same as palladium). This hydrogen gas is released in the ambient when the battery is opened... Although is not a large quantity of hydrogen, the gas do its business with oxygen quite efficiently, and can be dangerous. It is ignited by the local short circuits even if small; remember the hydrites are a powerful H - O2 catalyst, this is why you can see flames.
richardwayne1990 Exactly! Stay calm! Figure out, what is going on. Then, if necessary, panic! Look at the Boston Bombing. They placed the bombs, so that after the first one went off, people would PANIC, and then run into the second bomb. Sometimes, the safest place, is where you are already at!
Clive: What's inside Eneloop and LIDL NiMh cells (fire, apparently) Others: OMG!!!! DESTROYING DANGEROUS RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES!!! NEARLY CATCH MY HOUSE ON FIRE!! (GONE WRONG), (ALMOST DIED) // 200 FIDGET SPINNERS GIVEAWAY + RED HOT KNIFE VIDEOS AT THE END!!!!
You forgot there also need to be a facecam on at all times to capture needlessly exaggerated emotions and voice, while delaying the actual content to pad the playtime as much as possible as a sorry excuse for people to see their faces. I don't get it about why somehow people still like watching that sort of crap.
This is the best part of RUclips. The small and medium sized channels. The stuff you'd never see get on TV. The stuff I'll sit and watch for an inordinate amount of time some nights after smoking a bowl. I wish youtube treated the small and medium creators better, because it's the reason I go to RUclips.
I love the names of the things in the work shop. Vice of Knowledge Explosion Containment Pie Dish Make a video of all the names given and their purpose.
A simple alkaline battery with a small bunch of steel wool works like a champ as well. Just pull the wool out so it stretches from pole to pole and it kinda just burns up 👍
This is one I missed! I don't know how? However interesting. But this is absolutely why we watch Clive take things to bits and save us from explaining why the carpet is burned or worse. Thanks Clive.
Mikeselectricstuff has a video where he tears down a hydride-containing hydrogen storage capsule, the reaction is very significantly stronger than here (probably because it's in powder former instead of paste)
The original worry was that the electrodes might short so I suppose the conductive pie dish wasn't favoured... maybe a cheapo imitation pyrex casserole dish or something similar would have been best thing with the benefit of hindsight.
16:30 after listening to what sounds like rain in the background and thinking the batteries were boiling and about to burst into flames any minute, we finally got some smoke! I honestly did not expect the flames to appear on a piece of metal that had already been unrolled and separated from the rest of the material. That seems kind of odd to me.
"It is by will alone I set my bench in motion. It is by the juice of ginger beer and rum that thoughts acquire speed, the bench acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my bench in motion."
Behold, followers of the Revealed Lion, you have seen the internal secret flames of power, the mesh that binds and Bigclive is your prophet! Praise be to the Pie Dish of Explosive Containment!
brickley2000 Maybe it's religious microbes forming religious images of their deities by lining themselves up in giant parades. Since food items often include large populations of good edible microbes such as yeast, they are more likely to become the scene of such parades.
At the 16:15 ish portion it appears that you unintentinally contact the mesh with the material on the paper towel and this seems to be the catalyst for the start of the meltdown?
Kind Sir (Squire), a sincere delight to hear from you personally! (How wonderful!). Appreciate your feedback, measured everything with the vernier, all OK, these are older cordless units, I have 5 sets in Australia and Thailand, the issue persists, but not really an issue. Semi -retired expat from AU living in Thailand this end, SO many anomalies with everything electrical here, more to come, all of interest :-) Kind regards, Mark
Still one od my favourite videos by you - for starters these are very interesting, as an A level Physics and Engineering student, but also highly entertaining!
I used to retrive nimh from these cells as to create hidrogen storage canisters, I always open those under water, as soon as nimh is activated you can't let it open on air or... flames. nice video.
I had always been told that this was a possibility with all of the rechargeable batteries. I'm happy to see you test that theory and glad that it didn't end up worse, all things considered. All of those could have started combusting at once.
"I had always been told that this was a possibility with all of the rechargeable batteries." - Oh yeah, absolutely. If he wouldn't have discharged them completely then there would've been a high chance of the rest of them bursting into flames too.
Maybe you can answer this question. I have a theory that when NiMH cells get older and their performance degrades (low capacity, low runtime) it's partially because the electrolyte has dried out. I've confirmed this by drilling a tiny hole in the bottom of an old cell, injecting some distilled water with a syringe, and testing the cell again. The performance improved markedly. The AA cell went from 0.2A short-circuit current to 0.7A short circuit current (almost as good as a healthy cell). I'm just having trouble finding a good way of sealing the cell. So far I tried soldering, but the alkali in the cells corrodes the solder and it crumbles away after a few weeks. Now that you've taken cells apart, do you have any good ideas for replenishing the electrolyte? Maybe drilling the hole in the top or side? How would you go about filling it? Maybe welding, or using epoxy resin instead of solder? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I cut up carbon-zinc D cells when I was a kid. That didn't result in flames but the electric-arc "furnace" I made with the carbon rods did result in quite a few flames!
At 16:19 you can see how the kathode touches anode side of the separator. A few seconds later exactly the spot where they touched catches flames. I guess it was the pyrophoric nature plus a little heat from the exothermic reaction where they touch which ignited the fiber
Brave man Clive, I have never taken apart a lithium battery as yet, however I do take old radio batteries apart to rebuild to keep my radios original. The early zinc carbon batteries have a black pitch seal on top, I have an early ever ready flag cell with red pitch on top. As for lithium it becomes unstable on contact with air in some instances. I might give it a go one day but certainly your video gives one a great insight in to this subject matter. The best lithium battery that catches fire is the lipo sack type, seen a few videos on here of people puncturing them, the reaction is ferocious.
8:14: "Opening my eneloop so you don't have to." Yeah, I've had rechargeable (they were NICD's back then) batteries starting since the mid to late 1980's when I was a child in 5th or 6th grade. Even to this day, I never felt that I had to open any of them.
16:44 "...this isn't necessarily quite good." I dare anyone to try saying that without a Scottish (or at least UK) accent without sounding completely silly.
Fire in the batteries? When I was a maintenance electrician, I learned that most electric devices like motors run on smoke. Because, once the smoke escapes, the motor will not run anymore !! By the way, judging by your skills with the diagonal cutters, I would suggest that you do not lose your can opener at home
12:56 - there is one in the middle that holds the electrolyte and one on the other side of the positive so when you coil it the +ve isn't touching the negative.
Finally! A practical use for NiMH! Firestarter! They ain't much good as an electrical energy storage device, figured they had to be good at *something*
"Where is my explosion containment Pie Dish?" are surely words used in a Wallace and Gromit film
"Gromit! It's the bad batteries....
and they've gone BAD!
Quick! Get all the cheese into the van!"
Lol, good fun.
@@FurtiveSkeptical Wallace: And don't forget the crackers, Gromit 😂
"one moment please" he says as his bench bursts into flames... That's the most British thing I'll see on the internet today.
**Scottish**. :-)
@@Solocat1 - always one has to say it. William Wallace is never to be forgotten.
@@hobmoor2042 Yer damn right! Scotland's right is to be free!
@@stacksmalacks8826 Scotland is on the isle of Britain. It will always be British whether it's part of the UK or not. Geography mate.
Yeh this is how we react to things, when I set my grill alight, I just dealt with fire, threw burning bacon into sink , ran the tap til flames stopped, and casually started eating the wet bacon,
"So that's my workbench on fire."
Somewhere, Electroboom is proud of you, Clive.
I absolutely love how your reaction to the flame was akin to that of seeing a spider.
My best guess for why it went up in flames is because the metal hydride was lithium borohydride. Which reacted vigorously with the water in the air, causing it to produce hydrogen and heat, which then caught fire.
Yes, Battery be burny (in layman's terms)
@@Ne0ge0X lithium be fucky
So, as long as i don't try to take them apart i shouldn't get a face full of fire (since i use them in my camera flash), right? Right?
This just makes me want to see what happens if I spray water on it.
@@mikeoxlong1395 Generally yes, as long as the battery remains airtight it's not gonna react. That said, handle your batteries carefully and replace them at appropriate intervals lest they stop being airtight and subsequently become firestarters.
You're so honest dude, most youtubers nowadays would just put "I ALMOST DIED ETC ETC ETC" in their titles, but you didn't, your attitude is very oldschool and good towards RUclips.
yes he is very watchable. No growly rarah accent.
Give him 20 yrs when the cancers kick in :p
@@broken2352 He is 52 so that would be a good run. (I am the same age)
Not being American and born last century helps!
Gen x isn't he?
Remember kids, don't try this at home. Go over to somebody else's home and try it there.
Hahahaha 😜😂
So glad i'm not the only one who hears such warnings the same.
Or in the garage. Lithium cells make some interesting sounds and smells when squeezed in a vice 🙈
2 years on and I still chuckle at this comment :D
@@jcramond73 Bless you my son! It's probably the only gag I've made that's had any real success. XD
It's 1am and I'm watching a guy cut apart batteries. The future is bright.
thechosendude Same here. But hey...! at least you are the chosen dude..
... Yep.
6am for me, noisy neighbours kept me up all night!
thechosendude it's 10:33
the future is orange
From what I was taught 40 some odd years ago, they manufacture these cells completely devoid of a charge, and the process of charging them expands the electrolyte and compresses everything together. If so, then charged batteries have more outward pressure on the casing than depleted ones. It was always an urban legend that some batteries had a measurable difference in circumference between charged and depleted states, though I've never tested this.
I have had them swell with use.
@@UQRXD yeah, but that's a different effect lol. That's from cell abuse
i discarded that as temperature fluctuations because i move between outdoors and buildings often and it's really cold where i work. Hence need a lot of batteries for different appliances.
They bounce and sound different when charged vs discharged.
@@professorfukyu744 I think that's just Alkaline Cells. I can't think of anything that would cause this in NiMh
Pro tip: Once you get the metal started with snips, switch to needle nose pliers, and roll the metal right around the pliers. Kind of like the old food tin openers. It works well.
Bonus: If successful, this method presents additional fun when trying to remove it from the pliers without getting chemicals inside the fierce and deep cuts it gives your fingers
@@owlredshift Bonus2: Use a second set of needle nose pliers to remove it from the first.
(A lesson learnt after cuts were bandaged)
I've seen Nile Red open a cylindrical cell by cutting the end off with a pipe cutter.
@@owlredshift but those chemicals catch fire…surely that would cauterise those cuts you have just given yourself? 😉
Get a narrow strip started then use the key from an old tin of corned beef????
"One moment please..."
Most casual reaction to an accident, ever.
Insane GamersTM Beefy thank goodness for the explosion containment pie dish
That's the best reaction one can have; panicing is a terrible idea when things go south.
Accident... or showmanship?
Staying calm is pretty much a requirement when you are an engineer and especially when you are an insane mad scientist one like Clive.
A very British reaction. Being a Scot he shows no fear
Normal people: I dont want to take batteries apart that sounds like a terrible idea.
"Scientists": Taking batteries apart because I'm curious. But I'll be wearing safety glasses and got a fire extinguisher on hand, and I'm doing this outside.
Clive: These could go thermonuclear on me but hey I got a pie dish somewhere around here I think...what can go wrong, right?
Boilermaker: Lets see what happens when I squash it with my hammer
Photonicinduction: what if I pumped 5000V into it
Just watched some guy play around inside a microwave with it plugged in, and standing in bare feet on concrete.
He did shock himself, rthen pointed out all of his safety errors, but no doubt continued on.
Reminds me of Mythbusters, where the big one would tell everyone how dangerous it, but then continue to do dangerous stuff, despite electrocuting himself more times than U could count.
Clive: *sees something that could either kill him or burn his house down, or both, and continues doing whatever he was doing with the dangerous device
Clive: that's interesting
This comment just made 2021 automatically better than 2020.
Burn marks will improve auto-focus
‘This isn’t necessarily quite good’
No wonder you guys survived the Blitz.
British fighter plane with engine on fire and stalling out, wings leaking fuel, damaged rudder...
British pilot: 'this isn't necessarily quite good'
@@b-chroniumproductions3177 www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-18618055 Bomber Command hero 'climbed onto wing to put out fire'
@@alloaathleticwasps1639 WHERE HIS FACE REVEAL?
I've also done that and got blitz.thats why my names Blitz
@@b-chroniumproductions3177 That reminded me of the before times when I played IL-2 Sturmovik with a friend. I was piloting a Stuka and my buddy was tail gunning. We went in for a dive bomb on some British airfield and got pretty heavy flak directed our way. Right as I was about to drop the payload the plane jerked a bit, but I kept on target.
My friend just nonchalantly goes: "Um. I don't mean to complain but..." and I go in to 3rd person view.
I see the entire tail end of the plane gone and my gunners feet dangling out in the wind.
I forgot to parachute out, I was laughing so hard. :D
Having worked with these batteries often, seeing you wrap the flammable bits in paper towels and setting them aside nearly made me have a heart attack. Kinda glad one popped off proper though, let you know what could happen before you just left them there or pitched them in the trash. Cheers for the educational vid, stay safe mate.
It was "educational". That was a very sleepless night clearing up stuff in the vicinity where fragments of the pyrophoric material has potentially pinged to.
Just coat the paper with a bit of petrol, things will be fine.
For me, I'm across the pond.
I'll just get my coat...
"I think that we have all learned a very important lesson tonight. At least those of us who are still alive" -- The principal in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Thanks for the video, Clive.
@@erintyres3609 yes indeed. That Clive’s sense of adventure has long ago departed on an adventure and hasn’t been heard from since.
"This isn't necessarily quite good."
Very British
With a bit of German preciseness.
I just love this.
many great discoveries have been preceded by an exclamation of "hey, watch this!"
@@jaewok5G hey watch this comment
Was running fire duty for a welding job in a plating factory once when a stray spark landed on a super old wooden, chemical soaked step stool. That one little spark started up a tiny fire which wouldn't go out from being stomped on, sprayed with water, or even being sprayed with an extinguisher. The bench got drag outside and pitched into the alley where it burned down to nothing. Moral of the story, fire gets weird when you start throwing chemicals into the mix.
BigClive: "I burn my house down so you don't have to burn yours down"
Classic mate, just classic.
And this isn't even the Samsung batteries.
@@thehonestorange713 underrated comment! :D
Just casual ya know
I love how his reaction to batteries catching fire is mild surprise and curiosity. XD
uwu
For being in the U.K., that was a very excited and cantankerous outburst of surprise and emotion.
“This is all going on fire quite rapidly”
Famous last words
Stop, drop, and roll
@@LoonaStanGTNH You would probably be better off watching some reality-tv
Followed by
" This is fine...."
Next Week: What's inside a gas cylinder. Now, where's my angle grinder?
This fucking guy xD
Dave Curran :D XD
"Oh deary deary me!" I can even hear it in his voice
"Where's me 'ammer??"
"I AINT 'AVIN IT"
"Where is my, explosion containment piedish."
That quote belongs on a T-Shirt
This is an amazing quote lol
It's in the oven!
@Dragon Shippuden what;s scp & ecp?
*So ICs contain smoke and batteries contain fire. Got it.*
Like they say, there's no smoke without fire.
hmmm... I'm not sure about that. I know I have had ICs smoking without catching fire.
But in most cases if you let the smoke or fire out of its container it stops working.
And if you run a really big current through your circuit you may see the fire escaping through your leaky components.
ElmerFuddGun maybe if you put another fire back in it works like pokemons
"yeah, not sure the science of this but this is all going on fire quite rapidly"
basically a normal day then
Most likely metal hydrides reacting with the moisture in the air, but that doesn't really explain why only one cell caught fire
British eccentricity at its finest. Taking apart batteries and having a very British reaction to something randomly combusting. Why youtube sent me here i have no idea but i salute Clive
Neighbor "What burning thing is Clive throwing out the door now"?
As Rodalco2007 would say: "Oh, never mind, just testing something!"
Famous Last Words:
"I have largely discharged these cells for safety reasons, so that they don't go thermonuclear on me." - Big Clive
Jan. 1, 19xx - May 13, 2017
Zane Revai when his funeral is held, no batteries allowed
That would be an Event 1000 if my memory serves me well . . . . .:-)
Damned! I have many of these Lidl-cells! Didn't open them, but what if one leaks and gets into contact with air? And I'm also doubtful about the quality because some cells died after maybe ten chargings.
+Juri Vlk Are they chargeable even? At our Lidl in that Netherlands they have non chargeable and chargeable, and aside from a little word on the outside of the battery, they look exactly the same.
1964 actually if i'm not mistaken
At 17:42 "That's definitely not something you want to stick in your bin, is it?" Now let me just set it on this highly flammable paper towel...
his reaction to the fire (or to the reaction) was hilarious. he is a gentleman and no chemical fires will change that fact. good day sir
It's very generous of you to take all of these risks so that we don't have to. Thanks a million.
The bigger holes let bigger electrons through. It saves the big electrons until the end and hence why it doesn't self discharge. You can refill them by pouring finely milled electrons back into them in a tap water solution.
Dave B Or just pick up a can of pre-milled electrons. The smaller electrons are tough to deal with though. they're slippery little bastards.
>"finely milled electrons"‹‹
I find distilled water works best and I get a better life if I use a coarse grind of electrons, finely milled ones discharge too quickly.
Where can I buy the electrons required to refill my batteries? I've checked Ebay and poundland and have come up blank.
Also, do I need a special funnel?
just use the electron faucet on your wall, every room usually has 3 or 4 of them
"That's definitely not something you want to stick in your bin, is it?"
I think this is the reason why people are warned to dispose of batteries properly, lol.
V
It would be interesting to know what happens to these cells that we put in battery recycling tubs in stores.
this is exactly what happens,Clive takes them to bits & then puts back together again lol
@@gasgas2689 I don't know the specifics, but I know that some steps involve slicing the ends off and other disassembly, bath of mild acid to clean and separate stuff, a lot of crushing and sieving, and finally melting the metal down.
And like all waste processing of metals, the types of metals separate themselves when smelted: some float, others sink.
What is a proper way to dispose of spent batteries, though?
If you watch from time frame 16:14 you can see the edge of the mesh touching the maternal on the tissue where the fire starts.
Nice one Clive
Mark Andrews yes it shorted . Clearly not fully discharged
@@Gixer750pilot because discharging only reduces its voltage
"Where is my explosion containment pie dish?"
"This it Clive?"
"No mate, mine's the one full of accelerant."
So many factors can contribute to a battery exploding/catching fire. But just out the gate, they have all the main elements needed to start a self-sustained fire.
The "metal hydride" in NiMH is one of a class of chemicals where hydrogen is ionically bonded to a metal (as opposed to the usual covalent bonding that hydrogen participates in). Some examples of metal hydrides are Sodium Hydride, Lithium Hydride, Lithium Aluminum Hydride. I don't know which one is typically used in NiMH cells. Most of these chemicals will spontaneously catch fire in air if exposed for long enough.
Nickel oxide hydride (NiOOH)
It is nickle metal hydride in Ni-MH batteries
It's not nickel hydride. Nickel oxide hydroxide is the cathode. The anode is typically a mixed rare-earth hydride such as cerium and lanthanum hydrides along with some others mixed in. Not all nickel-metal hydride cells have the exact same anode material, but it's generally some sort of rare-earth hydride mixture. This is part of why they are so much more expensive than simple alkaline batteries (not just because they're rechargeable, they are actually much more expensive to make).
Graham Stewart natural lanthanum is not radioactive and is quite abundant in the earths crust.
Identifying what the metal mesh is made of is important for recycling and or science purposes. I have re-used the Zinc metal wrap inside of regular batteries for other science experiments. I am now wondering about that metal sheet you pulled out! batteries work off a chemical reaction... For Alkaline... It is a caustic reagent with zinc...
Then there are those with an acid reagent and again a metal wrap... Again usually zinc in the regular batteries...
Please identify the metal mesh wrap!
*Eneloope* densely packed and perfectly fine, great battery
*Energy 2500* densely packed too, just don't let it crack or itll burn your house down!
I also believe that chemical was probably combustible. My evidence for this theory is that the chemical caught on fire.
I was wondering about the wisdom of opening batteries on a paper towel, but now I see it…
Standard procedure, it helps identify fire outbreak for hasty retrieval of pie dish.
@@SubPablum 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Whole new angle for advertising paper towels. "Brand X smolders and smokes but Brand Y bursts into flames every time!"
You should open Ni-MH batteries under a fume extraction hood.
The negative electrode has a steel mesh filled with various metal hydride (including nickel hydrite). This hydrites do store hydrogen gas 900 times their volume (same as palladium). This hydrogen gas is released in the ambient when the battery is opened...
Although is not a large quantity of hydrogen, the gas do its business with oxygen quite efficiently, and can be dangerous. It is ignited by the local short circuits even if small; remember the hydrites are a powerful H - O2 catalyst, this is why you can see flames.
,
I was waiting for the flames the whole time. I was expecting them and when they finally happened they still frightened me
Desk burn = character. We'll remember the reasons for the scorch marks.
I love the reaction!
FIRE! (drops what's in hands)
Ooh, wait a second, how beautiful!
Then, back to FIRE!
THAT, that would be me, too!
hed make a great fire fighter, oh look the house is on fire how pretty... right back to sorting the problem out
richardwayne1990 Exactly! Stay calm! Figure out, what is going on. Then, if necessary, panic!
Look at the Boston Bombing. They placed the bombs, so that after the first one went off, people would PANIC, and then run into the second bomb.
Sometimes, the safest place, is where you are already at!
Alright, calm down there SoFlo.
Random Videos You want to exclaim someone who rips off other people's content, you go right ahead!
Clive, any chance of selling a custom Explosion Containment Pie Dish on the website?
When we say "back when the internet was good", things like this content is what we are referring to. Thank you for your public safety film.
Clive: What's inside Eneloop and LIDL NiMh cells (fire, apparently)
Others: OMG!!!! DESTROYING DANGEROUS RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES!!! NEARLY CATCH MY HOUSE ON FIRE!! (GONE WRONG), (ALMOST DIED) // 200 FIDGET SPINNERS GIVEAWAY + RED HOT KNIFE VIDEOS AT THE END!!!!
you dont need clickbait when you have quality content
You forgot there also need to be a facecam on at all times to capture needlessly exaggerated emotions and voice, while delaying the actual content to pad the playtime as much as possible as a sorry excuse for people to see their faces.
I don't get it about why somehow people still like watching that sort of crap.
Don't forget "prank gone wrong" and a thumbnail of Nagasaki.
+nomoredamnnamestouse "EXPLOSIVE BATTERIES INSIDE PREGNANT ELSA???"
(GONE SEXUAL)
OPEN A FULLY CHARGED LIDL CELL NOW
The temptation is there.
Make sure to wear your powerarmor, Clive
I came for the teardown, but stayed for the spontaneous combustion. More of this please!
I don’t know why this was in my recommendations but I’m watching with extreme interest
This is the best part of RUclips. The small and medium sized channels. The stuff you'd never see get on TV. The stuff I'll sit and watch for an inordinate amount of time some nights after smoking a bowl. I wish youtube treated the small and medium creators better, because it's the reason I go to RUclips.
I love the names of the things in the work shop.
Vice of Knowledge
Explosion Containment Pie Dish
Make a video of all the names given and their purpose.
You need to watch Ave if you like weird terminology.
I think he has a video like that, where he shows all his tools and he mentions a lot of names there.
PØKATELLO yesssss
Chuckiele link ?
There's also the pipe grips of perpetual inquisitiveness.
If you ever need to start a fire always have a LIDL NiMh Battery and a side cutter in your pocket.
A simple alkaline battery with a small bunch of steel wool works like a champ as well. Just pull the wool out so it stretches from pole to pole and it kinda just burns up 👍
Can I just hammer a nail into a completely charged battery?
"Just let me get my explosion control pie dish"
... This is my new fire containment device...
16:23 "Oh- alright. Ok that's a- There is actually- There's flames."
This is one I missed! I don't know how? However interesting. But this is absolutely why we watch Clive take things to bits and save us from explaining why the carpet is burned or worse. Thanks Clive.
Pyrophoric pyrotechnics, eh, Clive? Any idea what the material is that gets so excited on exposure to air?
Finely powdered aluminum and nickel can ignite on contact with air. Including some hydrides.
Mikeselectricstuff has a video where he tears down a hydride-containing hydrogen storage capsule, the reaction is very significantly stronger than here (probably because it's in powder former instead of paste)
something is flaming....oh its a nimh (sorry clive)
Best question so far. I for example have always wondered what the metal hydrides are in these batterys
Maybe Nilered or Nurdrage can look in to this
"Explosion Containment Pie Dish" saves the day!!!
That's often the case when the fire-proof safety paper sheet isn't up to the job that day.
Always a good day when the pie dish is needed. Surprised he never used that instead of the highly flammable paper towel.
The original worry was that the electrodes might short so I suppose the conductive pie dish wasn't favoured...
maybe a cheapo imitation pyrex casserole dish or something similar would have been best thing with the benefit of hindsight.
I don't think conductivity was anything to worry about at that point, just something to contain the fire until it burned out.
Hopefully the LIDL ones are still safe as I use them all over!!!
Experimenter's trade secret: always have an adjacent window or door which can be used to "eject" experiments gone wrong. ;)
Especially if you live on the fourth floor
Karl Baron or in the elevator. ...
Big Bang Theory FTW.
as long as it's a crap generic lift and not a lovely Mitsubishi, Kone Nanospace (my favourite) or rare Schindler Smart MRL
though preferably not to anywhere you might hit a member of the public, relative, your cat, etc...
16:30 after listening to what sounds like rain in the background and thinking the batteries were boiling and about to burst into flames any minute, we finally got some smoke! I honestly did not expect the flames to appear on a piece of metal that had already been unrolled and separated from the rest of the material. That seems kind of odd to me.
"It is by will alone I set my bench in motion. It is by the juice of ginger beer and rum that thoughts acquire speed, the bench acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my bench in motion."
fire at 16:24
Arvīds Gills thanks
Arvīds Gills fire in the hole!
Thanks
Thank you gööd sir
Man I should have scrolled one more comment to see this
19:28 What are the odds that you burn a lion into your bench? %100 apparently....
Okurka I can kinda of see a lion, there is clearly a nose and mouth along with a pair of eyes in about the right spot. :-)
Behold, followers of the Revealed Lion, you have seen the internal secret flames of power, the mesh that binds and Bigclive is your prophet! Praise be to the Pie Dish of Explosive Containment!
Just be happy it wasn't a Jesus face or Holy Mother Mary (who seems to favor pieces of toast for her manifestations).
Actually, deities just seem to prefer random food items for their manifestations.
brickley2000 Maybe it's religious microbes forming religious images of their deities by lining themselves up in giant parades. Since food items often include large populations of good edible microbes such as yeast, they are more likely to become the scene of such parades.
At the 16:15 ish portion it appears that you unintentinally contact the mesh with the material on the paper towel and this seems to be the catalyst for the start of the meltdown?
That's what I thought until about 2min'ish later.
18:27 It helps watching the entire video.
Kind Sir (Squire), a sincere delight to hear from you personally! (How wonderful!).
Appreciate your feedback, measured everything with the vernier, all OK, these are older cordless units, I have 5 sets in Australia and Thailand, the issue persists, but not really an issue. Semi -retired expat from AU living in Thailand this end, SO many anomalies with everything electrical here, more to come, all of interest :-) Kind regards, Mark
Still one od my favourite videos by you - for starters these are very interesting, as an A level Physics and Engineering student, but also highly entertaining!
We should all appreciate that Big Clive does naughty things so we don't have to
He is a lifesaver, for I am too curious for my own good, and a hell of a lot less dextrous
At 15:31, on the right hand side of the screen there was definately some smoking and ignition of a smaller part on the bench.
and weirdly that piece was the outer wrap that he cut off with the knife before opening the actual metal can of the cell
Great experiment and important lesson learnt. A burn-mark on the workbench shows that real work is being done here.
I used to retrive nimh from these cells as to create hidrogen storage canisters, I always open those under water, as soon as nimh is activated you can't let it open on air or... flames. nice video.
I had always been told that this was a possibility with all of the rechargeable batteries. I'm happy to see you test that theory and glad that it didn't end up worse, all things considered. All of those could have started combusting at once.
"I had always been told that this was a possibility with all of the rechargeable batteries." - Oh yeah, absolutely. If he wouldn't have discharged them completely then there would've been a high chance of the rest of them bursting into flames too.
I've learnt from my own battery exploring that scoring a line on the case of the battery first encourages the metal to tear along it.
"...this message will self-destruct.." did you chose to accept the mission?
Other RUclips channel be like, editing fire into the thumbnail with shocked facial expression.
Waited through 16 minutes worth of video for the flame, I enjoyed his reaction quite well. Very much worth it
Maybe you can answer this question. I have a theory that when NiMH cells get older and their performance degrades (low capacity, low runtime) it's partially because the electrolyte has dried out. I've confirmed this by drilling a tiny hole in the bottom of an old cell, injecting some distilled water with a syringe, and testing the cell again. The performance improved markedly. The AA cell went from 0.2A short-circuit current to 0.7A short circuit current (almost as good as a healthy cell). I'm just having trouble finding a good way of sealing the cell. So far I tried soldering, but the alkali in the cells corrodes the solder and it crumbles away after a few weeks.
Now that you've taken cells apart, do you have any good ideas for replenishing the electrolyte? Maybe drilling the hole in the top or side? How would you go about filling it? Maybe welding, or using epoxy resin instead of solder? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Ave would probably use carbon arc welding 🤣
Everything starts burning.... one moment please 👏😆
"Oh this isn't necessarily quite good."
You literally let the magic smoke out
Best reply ever.
There's no magic smoke without magic fire.
And there's no magic fire without Big Clive and a high power battery.
I've always enjoyed your voice. It's quite calming.
I cut up carbon-zinc D cells when I was a kid. That didn't result in flames but the electric-arc "furnace" I made with the carbon rods did result in quite a few flames!
At 16:19 you can see how the kathode touches anode side of the separator. A few seconds later exactly the spot where they touched catches flames. I guess it was the pyrophoric nature plus a little heat from the exothermic reaction where they touch which ignited the fiber
cathode
So, this is the video that marked up your bench. 👍 🤣 🔥
BEST video title ever!
Brave man Clive, I have never taken apart a lithium battery as yet, however I do take old radio batteries apart to rebuild to keep my radios original. The early zinc carbon batteries have a black pitch seal on top, I have an early ever ready flag cell with red pitch on top. As for lithium it becomes unstable on contact with air in some instances. I might give it a go one day but certainly your video gives one a great insight in to this subject matter. The best lithium battery that catches fire is the lipo sack type, seen a few videos on here of people puncturing them, the reaction is ferocious.
I didn't think that taking batteries apart would be so exciting until I saw Big Clive do it! Great vid, thanks!
“Oh! That isn’t necessarily quite good!”
Admire the understatement!
8:14: "Opening my eneloop so you don't have to."
Yeah, I've had rechargeable (they were NICD's back then) batteries starting since the mid to late 1980's when I was a child in 5th or 6th grade. Even to this day, I never felt that I had to open any of them.
16:44 "...this isn't necessarily quite good."
I dare anyone to try saying that without a Scottish (or at least UK) accent without sounding completely silly.
Can anyone smell burning beard ? 😀
Brother your hilarious , your process of discovery and verbal descriptions of your journey are extremely entertaining
I don't get it. How have they actually packed the flames inside ?
"I'll just put the fire over here, with the rest of the fire."
watching back the footage it looks like the fire started when you accidentally shorted the cathode and anode in some manner
I was waiting for it to happen every time he wrapped up the others in the wad of paper towel lol
you can see at 16:15 when he lets go, the anode and cathode touch each other, causing the reaction
16:20 I like how you are staying so cool.
Fire in the batteries? When I was a maintenance electrician, I learned that most electric devices like motors run on smoke. Because, once the smoke escapes, the motor will not run anymore !!
By the way, judging by your skills with the diagonal cutters, I would suggest that you do not lose your can opener at home
12:56 - there is one in the middle that holds the electrolyte and one on the other side of the positive so when you coil it the +ve isn't touching the negative.
Finally your workbench got some new battle scars. :)
I'm just glad Clive isn't a surgeon or I'd almost certainly spontaneously combust if he disassembled me.
Not just magic smoke, then. Magic fire too!
Finally! A practical use for NiMH! Firestarter!
They ain't much good as an electrical energy storage device, figured they had to be good at *something*
I've used a fish can key, like the ones used for kippers and sardines to peel metal things like that. It works quite well.