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How safe is your smartphone? Can your smartphone blast?

The Smartphones that you and almost everyone on this earth uses is made up of around 30 elements, including gold, silver and copper for wiring and lithium and cobalt in the battery.

The bright colours of the display are produced by elements like silicon, oxygen and potassium including small amounts of rare earth elements like dysprosium, yttrium and terbium which are also used to vibrate your phone.

In the last few years you must have read or seen cases where an idle phone, in-use phone or charging phone catches fire or blasts (as if magic) and people have died. Well it’s not magic at all! A phone may catch fire or blast for a plethora of reasons, but before we jump into the reasons check out this list below.

Top 6 smartphones that have caught fire or blasted in recent years :-

Phone – Redmi Note 4 Source – bgr

• Apple iPhone XR.

• Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus.

• Samsung Galaxy A20s.

• Samsung Galaxy A10s.

• Redmi Note 8.

• Redmi 8.

What causes the battery or the phone to blast?

Most of the time the blast or fire in your phone is caused by the battery or specifically the Li-ion battery.

Whenever a Li-ion battery explodes or catches fire, it’s undergoing a process called thermal runaway. The li-ion cell has a critical temperature. When the critical temperature of a cell is reached it enters an exothermic breakdown and starts to release a ton of heat.

Depending on the speed of this process, a battery could quietly sizzle out, catch fire, or create a minor explosion.

Source – naiduniya

Few other reasons why a smartphone may catch fire or blast :-

Leaving the phone inside a car – When a phone is left inside a car or directly under the sun the cells can become unstable. While they might not reach a critical point, they can short out or deteriorate producing gases like oxygen or carbon dioxide causing your battery to swell up. The battery can put pressure on your screen and in some cases break the screen from the inside.

Using faulty or local chargers – Faulty or local chargers (especially crappy wireless chargers) can generate excess heat and damage a phone’s battery. It leads to “bubbles” or shorts in your phone’s battery.

Bad manufacturing – Poor assembling can likewise be an issue. Like a high rise or a vehicle, Li-ion batteries are welded together from an assortment of pieces and pieces, and terrible welding can make a great deal of electrical obstruction. This obstruction (erosion) produces heat, which can cause short circuits and mechanical issues over a brief period.

Natural damage – When your phone is bent or damaged, you run the risk of harming your battery but when dropping a phone, important components like the display will usually break before the battery takes any damage.

Things to watch out for to avoid the Untoward :-

• Change your battery if it’s fatter than usual. No it didn’t gain weight. They are the result of too much current inside a cell of the battery.

• Do a background check on the internet before buying a phone.

• Try to avoid brands that are new or untrustworthy.

• Avoid downloading apps that overheats your phone and avoid overcharging as well.

All that said, a blasting phone or a phone on fire is a very rare incident which may only happen to you if you don’t follow the simple safety measures.

So be cautious and purchase wisely!

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