[Spooky23]

My company distributed buckets filled with cat litter for containment to every branch office.

We cut the rate of fire (already low) in half by containing compromised batteries. It’s something like 0.02%-0.03% which is significant given the massive scope. Something like 200k devices and about 3% with battery issues of all types.

When you think about the number of flights, passengers with lithium batters and challenges of the airplane environment, it’s a hard problem. We’re lucky the engineering around these devices are as good as it is.

[somat]

Kitty litter is not a bad choice for a class D metal fire but make sure you have the correct type. You want the stuff made out of bentonite clay, not the stuff made out of grain byproducts.

https://practical.engineering/blog/2025/4/15/when-kitty-litt...

[Spooky23]

Sorry i should have been more precise. It's some sort of enterprise kitty litter, which is probably the material you reference and costs about 5x kitty litter. ;)

[jasomill]

$500 million in clean-up costs resulting from using the wrong kitty litter. Amazing.

Sounds like the cleanup costs were largely related to the fact that the reaction caused an airtight drum to explode and spew radioactive waste throughout the facility, though, which presumably wouldn't apply to the "metal fire on an aircraft" scenario.

I'm curious what would actually happen, worst case.

Assuming the metal fire couldn't be extinguished, could it at least be contained to melt a small enough hole in the aircraft to safely land?

[somat]

The scary thing about a class D fire is that it is self oxidizing. They are very hard/impossible to put out. Usually the best you can do is isolate it from anything else that can burn and let it burn itself out, if you have the space and equipment and correct environment you can try and break it up, but that is a lot of ifs. Water can be problematic because there is a good chance it will just scatter a bunch flaming goo everywhere not put anything out. Usually the best thing to do is to stick it in a bucket of sand. Second best is to dump sand on it. Clay type kitty litter would be a good substitute for sand, it won't catch on fire, lighter than sand, it will absorb any molten residue from the fire.

My guess on the plane scenario, there are enough secondary effects (smoke, insulation/trim/carpet/seats catching on fire) that would bring down the plane. but I don't think a personal battery has enough fuel to burn thru. I think the isolation bags are probably just aluminum(perhaps steel) foil. enough layers to let the infernal thing burn out without catching anything else on fire. You probably still get a lot of nasty smoke.

[ozim]

I am pretty much sacred by amount of stuff I have at home that does have lithium batteries.

I try not to keep any in drawers but possibly in one open place and having fire blanket close to that stand.

Fire blanket would not help much for thermal runaway but I guess it would be better than nothing for containment or at least getting that one away from all the other batteries so they don’t chain react.

[ghighi7878]

What does your company do that they need this?

[Spooky23]

Just a very real safety culture.

We had an incident where a laptop with a swollen battery fell and lit up in a public way. It attracted attention and some research was done - they realized it happened a dozen times a year. Hazardous disposal options vary by location. So the question became… what should be done with these compromised batteries before they get disposed of?

It’s a simple thing that costs nothing. It’s like a fire extinguisher to me - I’ve never experienced a fire at work, yet we have extinguishers and exit signage everywhere.

That said, the rate of burning batteries is very low. (Like 0.001%) Unless you have a ton of people and different use profiles, you’ll never see this happen.

[3eb7988a1663]

Is there anything special about cat litter? Or just cheap and abundant?

[AlotOfReading]

The common clumping litters are usually some form of clay, dried to remove moisture. It's about as nonflammable as things come and lighter than undried clay.