Fire news, articles and features | New Scientist

Built-in fire extinguishers can prevent battery explosions

Jeremy Hsu — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 19:00:45 +0000

Lithium-based batteries like the ones that power electric vehicles are at risk of overheating

YONHAP/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Batteries enhanced with a polymer material that releases fire-suppressing chemicals at high temperatures are significantly less likely to explode into flames. This technique could boost the safety of battery-reliant machines, like electric cars and medical devices.

“Our approach enhances safety within mainstream liquid lithium batteries,” says at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. “It’s like popping open a safety valve – these chemicals smother flammable gases before they can explode, helping prevent fires.”

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Zhang and her colleagues created and tested the flame-retardant polymer material in a prototype lithium metal battery. Such batteries are currently in limited use, but next-generation versions are candidates to replace the batteries in electric cars and portable electronic devices. That is because lithium metal can store 10 times as much energy as popular lithium-ion batteries by using pure lithium, rather than graphite, in the negative electrode.

The researchers exposed the prototype battery and a standard lithium metal battery to gradually hotter temperatures, starting from 50°C. When external temperatures rose above 100°C, both batteries experienced overheating – but the prototype’s special polymer material began breaking down automatically, releasing chemicals that act like “microscopic fire extinguishers”, says Zhang.

Beyond 120°C, the standard battery without safety features overheated to 1000°C within 13 minutes and burst into flames. But under the same conditions, the prototype battery’s peak temperature only reached 220°C, without any resulting fire or explosion.

This “innovative material science approach” can reduce the risk of battery fires or overheating, not only in lithium metal batteries but also in certain lithium-ion batteries and lithium-sulphur batteries, says at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. It could lead to safer batteries, in particular for electric vehicles or even electric aircraft, he says.

The fire-suppressing technology would integrate well into existing battery manufacturing as a “near-term safety upgrade, while the industry pursues long-term solutions” involving alternative battery designs and chemistries, says Zhang. Still, injecting the polymer material into batteries would require some retuning of manufacturing processes, she says.

Journal reference

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Indigenous Australians have managed land with fire for 11,000 years

James Woodford — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 16:00:20 +0000

Aboriginal people use fires to manage the landscape

Penny Tweedie/Getty Images

Indigenous Australians have been managing the environment with fire for at least 11,000 years, according to an analysis of sediment cores retrieved from an ancient lake. at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, says the findings suggest that a return to an Indigenous regime of more frequent but less intense fires could reduce the risk of catastrophic bushfires and improve environmental management.

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The civilisation myth: How new discoveries are rewriting human history

It has long been known that Australia’s first peoples, who are thought to have been on the continent for 65,000 years, carefully managed the landscape with fire to make it easier to move around and hunt prey. They also figured out that this benefited some animals and plants that they preferred and reduced the risk of more dangerous fires. However, it has been difficult to establish how long this has been happening for, says Bird. That is because most waterways completely dry out in the dry season each year and the carbon in their sediments is destroyed. Girraween Lagoon, near Darwin in the Northern Territory, is a massive sinkhole covering an area of about 1 hectare that has stayed permanently wet for at least 150,000 years. As the climate changed over millennia, so, too, did the vegetation around the sinkhole. “From Girraween Lagoon, we have got 150,000 years’ worth of sediment that has never dried out,” says Bird. By analysing sediment cores from the lagoon’s bed, Bird and his colleagues were able to study three key metrics: the accumulation of micro-charcoal particles, the proportion of burnt material in the sediment cores and a measure of the amount of the different kinds of carbon that remain after burning. The first two metrics allow researchers to infer the intensity of fires, while the third indicates whether fires were cool enough to leave traces of grasses preserved. Prior to the arrival of people, natural fires in the savannahs of northern Australia were ignited by lightning late in the dry season, when vegetation and the landscape had almost fully dried out. This kind of higher-intensity fire combusts biomass more completely, particularly fine fuels such as grass and litter, leaving less charred remains from grasses. Indigenous fire regimes, on the other hand, burn frequently but with much less heat, affect small areas and are limited to short plants, sparing tall trees. This helps to promote a mosaic of vegetation and helping to protect biodiversity. Bird says the more recent layers in the cores show clear evidence of more frequent fires and grasses that haven’t been fully combusted, indicating cooler fires. These kinds of fires are a sharp departure from the previous natural pattern of fires and provide the tell-tale fingerprint of Indigenous fire management, he says.

Researchers collect sediment cores at Girraween Lagoon in Northern Territory, Australia

Michael Bird

This signal can be seen in sediments dating back to at least 11,000 years ago, the study found, but before that point the metric for the proportion of grasses and tree remains becomes harder to study. Bird says there are hints of a human burning signal from as early as 40,000 years ago, but the evidence isn’t as clear-cut. “It means that for at least 11,000 years, the savannah has grown up with humans,” he says. “The biodiversity has grown up with that fire regime. Take that kind of burning away and you start to see significant problems with biodiversity.” at the University of Tasmania, Australia, says the paper highlights the twin importance of climate and humans in shaping fire regimes. “Separating climate from anthropogenic – and importantly Indigenous – fire management is a hugely important topic,” he says. “We are battling to counteract climate-driven wildfires globally and such a deep-time perspective will be an invaluable addition to current research and development of sustainable fire management.”

Journal reference:

Nature Geoscience

Smoke-spotting AI watches live video to find early signs of wildfire

Jeremy Hsu — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 15:00:51 +0000

An AI that analyses live video from California’s statewide wildfire detection system could speedily focus human attention on possible wildfires

Sheets of fungus could be used as eco-friendly fireproofing for homes

Alice Klein — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:00:45 +0000

Fungi can be pressed into thin sheets that resist fire by forming a protective coating of char, and they could be turned into fireproofing materials for buildings

Flames that don’t flicker could make engines more efficient

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 18:11:17 +0000

Producing flickerless flames usually requires artificially low pressure or gravity. Researchers have now come up with a method that works in standard conditions and could help make engines more efficient

Fabric inspired by camel’s hump could protect firefighters from heat

Alex Wilkins — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 17:15:38 +0000

A fabric made by welding aerogel pockets together with ultrasound mimics the make-up of a camel’s hump to protect against fire as well as letting sweat escape

Gel-coated battery could stop mobile phones catching fire or exploding

Matthew Sparkes — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:00:02 +0000

A cheap and easily manufactured material can act as a thermal conductor at low temperatures and an insulator at high temperatures, which may help prevent dramatic battery fires and explosions

Fire safety app simulates wildfires and shows a route to avoid them

Edd Gent — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:34:39 +0000

An app that uses fire simulations based on local geography, weather and vegetation can tell people how to avoid the path of a wildfire

What is fire?

Matt Hambly — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 12:06:41 +0000

A chemical reaction that converts fuel and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water

Blue whirl that consumes all fuel it encounters is three flames in one

Layal Liverpool — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 18:00:25 +0000

The blue whirl flame

Sriram Hariharan (University of Maryland)

We may be one step closer to solving the mystery of the blue whirl flame – a soot-free flame that consumes all the fuel it encounters.

The elusive phenomenon was by researchers who were investigating more efficient ways of using fire to clean up oil spills in the ocean. They were experimenting with fire whirls – whirlwinds naturally induced by fire – and accidentally generated a clean, whirling blue flame.

Since then, researchers have been trying to determine the structure of this mysterious blue whirl flame, with the hope of harnessing it for cleaner and more efficient combustion.

Joseph Chung and Xiao Zhang at the University of Maryland, College Park, and their colleagues created a computer simulation of the experimental conditions that generated the original blue whirl flame. By gradually adjusting different parameters, such as the ratio of fuel to air, and comparing it with video footage of the blue whirl, the team was eventually able to simulate the flame and analyse its structure.

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They discovered that the blue whirl is actually the result of three different types of flame merging. These include an invisible outer flame, where there is more oxygen than fuel, and two visible inner flames, where the ratio of fuel to oxygen is higher.

Knowing the constituent flame types that make up the blue whirl’s structure could enable it to be recreated under more controlled conditions without the need to go through the fire whirl stage, which is dangerous and difficult to contain, says Chung.