Many, including Samsung themselves, have scratched their heads to try and figure out why the — frankly awesome — Galaxy Note 7 smartphone wouldn’t stop “exploding“. So far, the best we’ve got was that there was going to be a new investigation into this issue and that the results could be announced “by the end of this year“.
However, it looks like someone might have beaten the investigators to the punch as Instrumental technology reveals what could be the most reasonable explanation to the Note7’s fires.
According to Instrumental, the reason behind the fiery disaster that befell Samsung’s most stunning device yet was because the South Korean Electronics giant was pushing the boundaries of battery technology a little too far. As battery technology develops, it’s only natural to want to cram as big a battery as possible into as small a form-factor conceivable.
Unfortunately for Samsung, they took this desire over the line.
Instrumental explains that the lithium-polymer battery inside the Galaxy Note7 is made up of a positive layer made of lithium cobalt oxide, a negative layer made of graphite and two electrolyte-soaked separator layers made of polymer. This middle layer allows ions and energy to flow between the positive and negative layers without actually letting the layers touch.
It’s important that the two layers don’t touch because if they did the energy would go directly into the electrolyte, generating heat, which in turn generates more energy — continuing the cycle until it explodes.
Instrumental notes that Samsung had stated that the separator layers may have been too thin because of “aggressive manufacturing parameters” — likely to keep a large battery in a small smartphone body. Because of that, when pressure is applied to the device, the separator layer could have been compressed to the point where the positive and negative layers would touch.
To make matters worse, Instrumental notes that even if pressure wasn’t applied to it externally, the battery might have suffered a similar fate somewhere down the line because of “normal mechanical swell” of the battery. And if they never exploded, the phone could even have been pushed apart by this swelling as well.
Traditionally, to accommodate this swelling of the battery, engineers would leave about a 10% ceiling so the battery wouldn’t be compressed by it’s own shell. However, Instrumental points out that the Note7 did not have this ceiling and it was likely done intentionally to keep the device’s form-factor small.
Instrumental’s findings come from their own teardown of a Galaxy Note7 smartphone. It is worth noting that Instrumental’s investigation was also a move that would give them positive PR as the company is one that “helps hardware companies find and fix issues caused by workmanship, part quality, process and design”.
In any case, this is an interesting hypothesis to the Galaxy Note7’s battery woes. What do you guys think of these findings? Do you think Samsung will take the same risk with their upcoming device? Let me know in the comments below!
