Guide Samsung told about the causes of spontaneous ignition Galaxy Note 7

Samsung has failed with its new flagship Galaxy Note 7. After the release of this device on the market, everything went wrong. Users who purchased it, began to lay out the network information about the spontaneous combustion of batteries. In one week, only in the United States, five cases of telephone ignition were recorded, and one smartphone caught fire aboard an aircraft of Southwest Airlines just before departure. After this incident, a number of airlines installed special containers on board their aircraft in case of fire.

After short trials, Samsung acknowledged the problem, stating that the reason for the insufficient protection of batteries and in certain shortcomings in the process of their production. Therefore, Galaxy Note 7 owners were offered to replace their phones with updated ones, with enhanced battery protection. However, after a while, the owners of the “protected” phones started complaining about the same spontaneous combustion of the batteries.

The corporation eventually withdrew devices from the market and began to study the problem. This was done by our own specialists of the South Korean company, and by invited experts. It is clear that many media tried to guess the reason, making their own assumptions. The main versions were poor-quality insulation or a defect in the production of battery cells.
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Of course, a few fire apparatus of several million devices sold is not so much. But who wants to win the Russian Roulette game? And in early September, there were already 35 cases of the burning of the Galaxy 7. 17 - in South Korea, 17 - in the USA and one case occurred in Taiwan. After that, the corporation said that all the phones sold (which is about 2.5 million) will be replaced with new ones free of charge. The corporation stopped production, curtailed sales and recalled smartphones in the countries where these gadgets were sold officially.

The device owners received fireproof boxes with gloves and a package. It was assumed that the device must first be turned off, then put it in an antistatic bag, put it in a regular box, and its - in a fire-resistant. The instruction stated that the contents of the box should not be transported on board the aircraft due to the danger of fire. Forwarding devices connected UPS delivery service.

It is clear that the whole business has had an extremely adverse effect on the company's business. October 11, 2016, immediately after it became known about the recall of sold smartphones, Samsung shares fell in price by 9%. As a result, the company's capitalization decreased by $ 17 billion, and in 2017 the decline continued, the company is still suffering losses. At the moment, if users return all previously purchased smartphones, Samsung will lose about $ 2.2 billion, which, together with a loss of capitalization, will amount to $ 19 billion. It is unlikely that all users will return smartphones, but all the same - the loss is simply huge.

The situation clears up

As mentioned above, a large team of experts all this time was looking for possible causes that led to the appearance of the problem. A press conference on problems with the Galaxy Note 7 was held in Seoul on January 23 at the press conference at the press conference. He spoke about the progress of the work done.

The company's engineers, together with third-party experts, investigated more than 200 thousand devices and 30 thousand batteries. We checked both the hardware and software parts of the Galaxy Note 7. Also, all the stages of the system assembly were carefully checked, the quality control of both the technological processes and the delivery process to the points of implementation was carried out.

The cause was finally revealed. It turned out to be "the shortcomings of battery design and the process of assembling a gadget." The company said it takes the blame for what happened. To ensure that such situations do not recur in the future, Samsung has introduced a multi-level security protocol and a battery check program.


Samsung

As well as it was supposed , the problem is in too thin case and mistakes made while designing the placement of the smartphone components. Note 7 battery is a flat-shaped Li-Ion battery, which consists of a positively charged layer made of cobalt-nickel oxide and a negatively charged layer of graphite. Separates both layers of polymeric material impregnated with electrolyte. As in any other battery, the polymer layer allows ions to move freely, in the process of which current is generated. But if a positively and negatively charged layer is in contact, there is a significant heating of the electrolyte, more energy is released, the battery heats up and an explosion occurs with a fire. If you press on the battery, which is used in Galaxy Note 7, then sometimes this situation may arise. And too much pressure is not necessary.

The polymer was made very thin, so the battery can get very hot even if the user put the smartphone in his pocket and then sat on the smartphone. In some cases, this is enough for spontaneous combustion. Samsung engineers tried to find a boundary between security and the desire to make the device case as thin as possible.



The results of high-speed computed tomography of the lithium-ion battery cell 15 seconds before the accident (above) and 1 second before the accident (below). Source: “ In-operando high-speed tomography of lithium-ion batteries during thermal runaway ” research paper, Nature Communications 6, Article number: 6924 (2015), doi: 10.1038 / ncomms7924 (publicly available)

Due to insufficient testing time of the device (Samsung tried to release a new flagship as soon as possible) a device appeared on the market, whose work was not fully verified. As a result, the company, which wanted to make a profit of millions of dollars as a result of the operational launch on the market of a new smartphone, lost billions.