Prior to the release of what is considered to be the best smartphone to date, the Samsung Galaxy S8, the company has been a butt of jokes for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle, in which it had to make a worldwide recall of the smartphone due to its exploding battery. The problem was so bad that the Note 7 was banned by airlines and other places due to the danger it posed.

The U.S. Navy is also worried about exploding batteries, as they may cause fire, and fire is the greatest danger to ships always. Lithium Ion batteries, widely used in many electronic gadgets, from smartphones, to cameras, to e-cigarettes or vapes, can explode if the gadget puts stress on the battery due to design (such as making it making more compact) and will cause for the battery to overheat and explode. For the U.S. Navy banned vaping inside ships as there were 15 incidents that happened between October 2015 and June 15, 2016 that caused injury to Navy personnel or fire/material damage according to the NPR. Eight of these incidents took place inside ships and aircraft.

With the rise of e-cigs or vaping in the Navy, as sailors try to overcome boredom while in ships, has caused concern that incidents may increase, leading to its ban.

But, there may be hope for vaping sailors and if it gets released for use in the civilian sector, will be good news for anyone who uses a electronic and mobile device, including us airsoft players who also use a lot of batteries just to enjoy the hobby/sport.

In a report on Popular Science, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has announced a breakthrough in battery technology that will be safe at the same time rechargeable and could just be made to use in electric vehicles, including ships. The important material here is the use of Zinc, which is used by alkaline batteries that are not flammable. The only problem with the use of Zinc for rechargeable batteries is that it is prone to forming dendrites which are tiny problematic spikes.

What the NRL chemists have done is to reconstitute in another form, allowing an alkaline battery to be rechargeable without the problematic dendrites. They are partnering with EnZinc to create a 3D Zinc Battery,  “a safer, more affordable rechargeable battery to market for electric vehicles, ebikes, and home and grid energy storage,” as reported by the Next Big Future.

Hopefully, we get to use the same technology for airsoft, since we also have problems with the use of Lithium Polymers (Lipoly) as there have been cases of these batteries exploding while used in game as shown in this video:

As for the Navy Sailors affected by the vaping ban, they might just petition to NRL to also create a non-flammable rechargeable battery to be used with their vapes.