Lithium Ion batteries brought greatly increased battery life to laptops, but that did come at a cost: the risk of battery fire. As noted by Consumer Reports, a lithium ion laptop battery membrane that is compromised has the potential to trigger a runaway thermal reaction that could reach temperatures of over 1,000° F in a matter of seconds, leading to a fire or even an explosion. It’s not just the heat and flames that are a danger, toxic fumes are also in play. The odds of this extreme event happening are relatively rare, but they’re not unheard of. You don’t need to look that hard online to find accounts of laptop fires.
I’m writing about his because I just removed the battery in my wife’s seven year-old, 11-inch MacBook Air. This spare laptop was conscripted back into active use when she began working from home at the start of the pandemic. Laptops were in short supply…