What happens if you burn a depleted lithium battery..

We burn our garbage. I've been very, very strict with what I do with my depleted lithium primaries.

Unfortunately I cannot account for one of them. It was a SF cr123 I was using in my E1B. When it could not run high I replaced it, but have lost it.

I'm worried it's in a garbage bag.. Should I go through the garbage :duh2: or should I just burn it.

What could happen if the depleted cr123 happens to be in the garbage when I burn it.

It might be important that there is a diesel tank (200 - 300 gallon) and propane tank (500 gallon) both within 50 feet on either side.

It shouldn't be that impressive, but I wouldn't recommend doing it often.

Technically it breaks some law or regulation, but honestly I wouldn't worry about it, unless you had a few dozen batteries being burnt at one time.

youtube search "lithium burn" you'll see all kinds of flame, spark, smoke and general human stupidity. In almost every video the idiot standing there inhaling the fumes is coughing and gasping from the toxic fumes.

Kudos to you for being cautious and contentious.
:twothumbs

Don't worry about the tanks haha, its not like you are burning an anti-tank missile :sick2:

a lithium battery plant blew up not far from here not too long ago...it definitely made the air smell funny and made us cough more...but army says we didn't need protective masks...we just weren't allowed to go running for a few days while the fires burned down...i don't think one battery will hurt anything though

kramer5150 said:

youtube search "lithium burn" you'll see all kinds of flame, spark, smoke and general human stupidity. In almost every video the idiot standing there inhaling the fumes is coughing and gasping from the toxic fumes.

Kudos to you for being cautious and contentious.
:twothumbs

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Although lithium primaries can produce a pretty violent "explosion" it pales in comparison to what a lithium polymer secondary battery will do, especially considering most widely used lithium polymer cells are many times larger than a single CR123.

If there was a factory near me that burned down like that I would don a charcoal breathing mask and limit vigorous activity. I generally don't mind to much about smells and chemicals, but manufacturing chemicals and products for batteries are very toxic.

SFG2Lman said:

but army says we didn't need protective masks...

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Hehehe...

Why is it that every time I see something like this, the guy is usually standing there with a breather unit or a hazmat suit on???