Samsung’s Battery Woes Began with a Thinner ‘Club Sandwich’

In an announcement Thursday, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Officials fear the mobile devices – specifically the phone’s battery – pose a serious fire hazard.
Hector Abruña, the director of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell University and an expert on lithium ion batteries, says the fault lies with Samsung’s desire to create a thinner “club sandwich.”
Bio: http://www.emc2.cornell.edu/members/view/h-ctor-d-abru-a.html
Abruña says:
“Batteries for cell phones are made by stacking the electrodes in a manner akin to a large ‘club sandwich’ in which anodes (negative electrode) and the cathodes (positive electrode) are kept apart using layers of separators.
“In an effort to minimize weight and volume, Samsung used a separator that was too thin and this gave rise to shorts which made the batteries get very hot and fail catastrophically.”
Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.
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