It’s a trade-off between that (risk) and benefits."We are reviewing every step of our engineering, manufacturing and quality control processes," Samsung said in an emailed response to Reuters. Brandon Ng, whose Hong Kong startup QFE plans to sell refrigerator-sized batteries to replace diesel generators, said there is still room for improvements."We remain confident in the comprehensive improvements made to the 787 battery system following this event, and in the overall performance of the battery system and the safety of the airplane," Boeing said in 2014 after an investigation into one incident.Asked about Samsung's woes last week, Panasonic CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga told reporters lithium ion batteries could become prone to fires when density was raised and fast charging was applied. The fleet was allowed to resume flights after changes were made to the battery and charger, and to better contain battery fires.
The market has grown from a few hundred million cells in 2000 to 8 billion last year, according to Albemarle, a US chemical company. And however sophisticated the materials, "they're not 100 per cent safe and they never will be," said Larsen, the consultant.N) was forced to ground its entire fleet of advanced 787 jetliners after some lithium-ion batteries caught fire.6 million Sony Corp laptop batteries were subsequently recalled.Massachusetts-based SolidEnergy Systems is working on a lithium metal battery which founder Hu says takes up half the space of existing batteries."Greater DemandsBefore the era of smartphones, users didn't require much of their device - a few phone calls, a few SMS messages."A battery is really a bomb that releases its energy in a controlled way," says Qichao Hu, a former researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of SolidEnergy Systems, a battery startup.
