As an auditor of battery manufacturers around the world, mechanical engineers from the University of Maryland Michael Pecht He often finds himself touring the spotless production floor. “The cleanest hospital you can imagine – it’s semiconductor-type cleaning,” he says. But he’s also seen the opposite, and it’s a lot. Pech estimates that he has audited dozens of battery factories where he found workers watering plants next to the production line or smoking cigarettes, where particles and contaminants can enter battery components and compromise their performance and safety.
Unfortunately, scenes like this are just the tip of the iceberg. Pecht says he’s seen poorly assembled lithium-ion cells with little or no safety features and, worse, they’re downright counterfeit. These fake phones can be home-made or factory-made and may masquerade as fake phones from well-known global brands. They have been found in scooters, vape pens, e-bikes and other devices, and have caused fires and explosions with deadly results.
The prevalence of counterfeit batteries is increasing, raising concerns in the global battery market. In fact, after a string of fires caused by faulty batteries in New York City over the past few years, including several powering e-bikes used by the city’s delivery cyclists, New York banned the sale of uncertified batteries. The city is currently installing its first e-bike battery-swapping station as an alternative to home charging, to encourage delivery riders to replace their depleted batteries with new ones instead of charging at home, where a dead battery could pose a fire risk.
Compared to certified batteries, whose public safety risks can be extreme, the dangers of counterfeit batteries may be underestimated. “It’s probably a very bad situation with these counterfeits,” says Pecht.
There are a few ways to make a fake battery. Scammers often relabel old or scrap batteries manufactured by legitimate manufacturers such as LG, Panasonic or Samsung and sell them as new. “It’s very easy to create and apply a new label,” says Pecht. To get a higher price, they sometimes replace genuine batteries with labels that claim a higher capacity than the cells actually have.
But Pecht says the most common counterfeit batteries are home-made batteries. Counterfeiters can do this in temporary environments because lithium-ion cells are quite simple to manufacture. With anode, cathode, separator, electrolyte and other electrical Elements, even fly-by-night battery makers can get the cells to work.
What they don’t do is make them as safe and reliable as tested, certified batteries. Fraudsters skimp on safety systems that prevent problems that could cause fires. For example, certified batteries are made to prevent thermal runaway, the chain reaction that can start due to a power outage or mechanical damage to the battery and cause the temperature to spiral out of control.
Judy Jeevarajan, vice president and executive director of the Houston-based Electrochemical Safety Research Institute, which is part of the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Research Institute, led a study of counterfeit batteries in 2023. In the study, Jeevarajan and his colleagues collected both real and counterfeit lithium batteries from three manufacturers (whose names were withheld), and pushed them to their limits to demonstrate the difference.
One test, called destructive physical analysis, involved destroying small cylindrical batteries. This immediately revealed the difference in quality. Legitimate, high quality examples included thick plastic insulators on the top and bottom of the cylinder, as well as axially and radially applied tape to hold the “jelly roll” core of the battery. But illegitimate examples had thin insulators or none at all, and little or no security tape.
“This is a major concern from a safety point of view because the original products are built with certain features to minimize the risks associated with the high energy density provided by Li-ion cells,” says Jeevarajan.
Jeevarajan’s team also encountered overcharging of batteries and electrical shorts. A legitimately tested and certified battery, like the coveted 18650 lithium-ion cylinder, combats these threats with intrinsic safety features like positive temperature coefficient, where a material gains electrical resistance when heated, and a current interrupt device (CID), which automatically disconnects the battery’s electrical circuit if the internal pressure rises too high. The lithium batteries validated in Jeevarajan’s testing had the best insulators and internal construction. It also had a high-quality CID that prevented overcharging, reducing the risk of fire. None of the other cells had any.
Jeevanarajan says that despite the severe shortage of safety parts in the batteries, great care was taken to ensure that the counterfeit labels had the same shade and markings as those of the original manufacturer.
How to spot a fake battery
Because counterfeiters are so adept at copying manufacturers’ labels, it can be difficult to know for sure whether lithium batteries that come with a consumer electronics device, or replacements that can be purchased on sites like eBay or Amazon, are actually the genuine article. It is not that only individual consumers are struggling with this. Pecht says he knows of examples where device makers purchased LG or Samsung batteries for their machines, but failed to verify that the batteries were genuine.
“Nobody can tell by looking at it,” says Jeevarajan. But companies don’t need to destroy cells to do their due diligence. “The lack of protective devices inside the cell can be determined by performing tests that confirm their presence,” she says. Pecht says an easy method is to have a comparison standard on hand – a known, valid battery whose labeling, performance, or other characteristics can be compared to a suspect cell. His team will even go as far as performing a CT scan to look inside the battery and find out if it has been manufactured correctly.
Of course, most consumers do not have the equipment to test the integrity of all rechargeable batteries in their homes. Again, to shop smart, Pech advises people to think about what types of batteries and devices they’re using. The units in our smartphones and the large, high-capacity batteries found in electric vehicles are not the problem; They are subject to strict quality control and the chances of them being counterfeit are very low. He says that so far, the cylindrical batteries found in smaller, cheaper devices have been the most likely to be counterfeited.
“They are mostly found as energy and power sources for portable applications that can vary from your cameras, webcams, cell phones, power banks, power tools, e-bikes, and e-scooters,” says Jeevarajan. “Most of these products are sold with part numbers that show the equivalent of the manufacturer’s part number. Electric vehicles are a very high-tech market and they will not accept cells and batteries of low quality or of questionable origin.”
Pecht says the trouble with dealing with the counterfeit battery crisis is that new regulations focus on consumer behavior, such as trying to prevent people from improperly storing or charging e-bike batteries in their apartments. Safe handling and charging are really important, but even more important is trying to keep counterfeit goods out of the supply chain. “They want to blame the user, like you overcharged them or you did it wrong,” he says. “But in my view, it’s the cells” that are the problem.
From articles on your site
Related articles on the web