The Boeing 787's high-profile battery fire may have been the
result of an engineering double-whammy: an energetic battery
chemistry combined with a possibly inadequate cooling system.
Battery experts who spoke to Design News this week said that the
787's lithium-ion batteries employed a cobalt oxide cathode,
which is known to be more prone to overheating than other
lithium battery chemistries. If that chemistry was used without
extra measures to draw heat away from the pack, it could be a
problem, experts said. "It's a no-brainer," Elton Cairns, a
professor of chemical engineering at the University of
California and a nationally known battery expert, told us. "If
they used a cobalt oxide chemistry, then the battery should use
a cooling system." An NTSB engineer examines the casing from the
battery involved in the JAL Boeing 787 flight in Boston.
Although Boeing has not said whether the 787's lithium-ion
battery packs use any kind of active cooling system, experts who
saw photos of the packs said it looked unl