Sounds like a horrible idea if not carefully controlled. Perhaps up to 80 degrees in an oil bath could redissolve some of the electrolytes. I guess it could work. Anything above 100 is asking for trouble.
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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So you're saying I SHOULDN'T preheat my toaster oven to 425F???
UH-OH!!!
brb. Gotta put out some fires.
80 degrees what?
See, this is where the problems begin.
heat to 80K....oh wait
How is the boiling point of water relevant to something that's made of plastic and metal?
Well the electrolyte solution is water based so exceeding the boiling point will cause pressure buildup inside.
Edit: hmm seems I might be generalizing too much. Not all batteries use water based solutions. My point is that you should avoid a pressure buildup inside the battery due to reaching the solvents' boiling point.
wha wha what
no, it's an organic solvent like ethylene carbonate/propylene carbonate + some other stuff, which have a boiling point of 230+°C ( 446°F)
heating up batteries is (mostly) fine (under controlled scenarios with known good batteries, spicy pillows can always happen with bad batches) as long as the plastic holding them together doesn't melt
you physically CANNOT make a lithium ion battery with water because lithium reacts with water
from the wikipedia page
Lithium reacts vigorously with water to form lithium hydroxide (LiOH) and hydrogen gas. Thus, a non-aqueous electrolyte is typically used, and a sealed container rigidly excludes moisture from the battery pack. The non-aqueous electrolyte is typically a mixture of organic carbonates such as ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate containing complexes of lithium ions.[45] Ethylene carbonate is essential for making solid electrolyte interphase on the carbon anode,[46] but since it is solid at room temperature, a liquid solvent (such as propylene carbonate or diethyl carbonate) is added.
Good point. It's highly concentrated inside a battery if not saturated. Hmm. I still wouldn't expose them to such high temperatures.
Perhaps a longer duration at lower temperature is safer. I might try it some day with some waste batteries and a battery tester.
Neat! So if I put my phone in the microwave it will reset the battery?
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Sounds like "microwave to charge" for the modern era.
In the good ol' days when I ran out of battery and every charger had a different stupid little connector, I often put my phone on the window still or heater to get a little bit of juice to do what I needed to do.
I guess I am a scientist.
Wow, this brought back memories of me rubbing my hands against my old Nokia battery in middle school to heat it up and get a couple extra %.
We did the opposite, put it in the freezer
IIRC freezing accelerates the chemical degradation of lithium ion (especially if you attempt to charge the battery at the same time) and tends to lower both the voltage and amperage of most battery chemistries, but it seems plausible that this might
- temporarily defeat a cell protection circuit, allowing a charging procedure to initialize, or
- delay a thermal failsafe cut-off of a damaged cell long enough to boot or charge a device
Regardless, for those tuning in at home, best to keep your batteries out of the freezer, especially lithium types, unless spicy pillows are what you’re after.
Oh, sorry, since we were talking about the good ol' days I thought it was implicit I wasn't talking about lithium batteries
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How does heat mitigate the dendrites? Also doesn't extreme heat damage the batteries? They barely hold up under high temperatures as-is.
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