Re: Mainly for the ladies, re battery warnings
Originally Posted by
realspeed
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Above is a typical sign of a battery that could explode even if as shown an AA battery
Any bubbles or ripples on any sort of battery throw it out.
This one is being moved to a safe area, if the inside is exposed to light they could catch fire.
I know as I opened one up and got quite a display of sparks and flame
If it was a lithium cell and you opened it then the fiery result is more or less inevitable. The plates are very close together and lithium batteries hold a lot of energy which it can release at once.
However the cell in your photo is a nickel metal hydride which can give off hydrogen if over charged. I very much doubt it was exposure to light that caused it to catch fire, it is far more likely that you short circuited the internal plates. High discharge current causes them to heat very rapidly to the point of catching fire.
Exposure to air may have resulted in a pyrophoric reaction but definitely not light.