Dan East

Well, a matter of minutes ago, while sitting here reading the news at my desk on my computer, I heard a loud “POP” sound, like a firecracker going off.  It was pretty loud – enough to make me jump.  A foot away from my arm was a Duracell 9V battery, and apparently one of the cells in it exploded.  It warped the top where the connectors are, and popped the bottom loose.  I felt it immediately and it was room temperature.  It was not connected to anything or touching anything – it was simply laying on its side on my desk.  Then less than two minutes later another cell exploded.  I’ve got my Blackberry sitting here video recording the battery in case a third cell explodes.  So far its up to 11 minutes and no third POP.

This is really disconcerting.  I could understand if the terminals were shorted, and the battery got really hot causing it to rupture.  But this thing was just sitting there, disconnected, not touching anything.  It’s been on my desk like that for weeks – I don’t even know if it has been used or not.  The fact that two different cells exploded within minutes of each other is very odd.  I wonder if the barometric pressure is falling, causing pressure inside the battery to stress the sealed cell and pop it open.  Right now the pressure is 29.88.  I just consulted a history chart.  The pressure was 30.18 24 hours ago, and it has been dropping steadily.  However that can’t be the cause, because the barometric pressure was even lower than that 5 days ago on December the 1st.

This  reminds me that a couple months ago I found another 9V battery on my desk (I don’t remember the brand) that also had also spontaneously exploded at some point, without being connected to anything.

Well, my Blackberry has been recording for 30 minutes now and no third explosion.  So maybe the fireworks are over for tonight.