I was reading through the Alumni News Letter from my graduate
alma-mater, UTD (The University of Texas At Dallas), and came across
this article about a faculty member and one of his former students who have
identified the cause of Lithium-ion battery overheating and the resulting fires. It turns out the problem is not in the design of the devices, or in the batter itself, rather it is the surface of the cell that the problem arises. They have posited a potential solution to the problem and I suspect at this point it becomes an engineering problem. Although this can't help the Lithium-Ion batteries already in place, it promises significant performance improvements in future laptops, tablets, and smart phones.
NOTE: The research was not funded by U. S. government or business sources, rather it was the South Korean government that financed the research. Just saying. 🙄
BRAGGING: You probably haven't heard of UTD because they do not have a football team, but their
esports team is making quite a reputation for itself. Yes, it is an egghead school and the number 1 ranked
public university in Texas and in all Texas Universities is outranked only by Rice University. (Okay, I'm bragging, but it is my
alma-mater after all and as a graduate student, I taught the very first class of undergraduates and I like to think I had some hand in helping shape the university it has become. 👨ðŸ»â€ðŸŽ“