Dr. Brilmyer speaks on tech and exploding lithium batteries

With their existence being an essential part of phones, computers and other electronic devices, lithium ion batteries are everywhere. However, with lithium ion batteries being such an important part of our society, they are making headlines for all of the wrong reasons.

George Brilmyer
(Photograph contributed / Linkedin)

A common problem with lithium Ion batteries is their tendency to overheat to the point where they catch fire or even explode. You may have heard of incidents like these, due to the fact that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and the “hover board” were both prone to these incidents.

With the popularity of lithium ion batteries growing among electronic companies and the use of cooling mechanisms in electronics diminishing, more cases of devices such as the Galaxy Note 7 are bound to happen. With this problem becoming imminent in our society, a solution was bound to be created.

Dr. George Brilmyer gave a talk at ETSU in the D.P. Culp University Center this past Thursday. The talk was the first in ETSU’s Symposium Lecture Series and the topic of the talk was PlaneGard.

According to PlaneGard’s official website, “PlaneGard is a fire containment case that is designed to protect people and property from Lithium-ion battery fires that can occur in Portable Electronic Devices (PED’s) such as laptop computers, tablets, readers, smart and cellular phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players.”

Brilmyer’s talk discussed the thought process behind PlaneGard, the process of building the final product and gave a crash course on how to use the product. Brilmyer also showed video clips of Lithium ion batteries failing while explaining how normal use of an electronic device can lead to the process that causes batteries to explode, which he referred to as Thermal Runaway.

Brilmyer also spent some of the talk discussing some of his major customers, which include Google, NASA and the FBI.

After the talk, Brilmyer opened the floor to anybody who had a question regarding the product. During this portion of the talk, he revealed that the price of this product was $4,750 and how it took four years to develop. The public will just have to wait and see what’s more to come.