I opened my laptop for unrelated reasons and was greeted by a slightly bloated battery. Idk if the picture makes it clear, but the individual segments of the battery have slightly raised above the solid structure pieces in between. Laptop is just over a year old. I have already contacted the manufacturer, but with the holidays and everything I'm not sure when I'll get an answer.
Basically, I'm worried about the potential danger. I use my laptop a lot (usually plugged in). Since the battery seems to be screwed in and not glued, I could just take it out, but idk if that would be better than just leaving it in until the manufacturer sends me a new one or has me send it in for battery replacement.
Also, I hope that consumer hardware posts like this are accepted in this community. The rules at least don't state otherwise.
Edit: thank you all for your comments. I brought the bloated battery to a recycling center the day after I made this post. Communication with Medion support eventually led to me talking to a very pleasant service technician on the phone. He sent me a new battery, which I just installed. Everything is working great again.
I'm going to go against what you just said, even though you might be a firefighter.
Take that battery OUTSIDE AWAY FROM ANY TREES OR YOUR HOME and put it in salt water to kill it completely. The water should have so much salt in it that the salt refuses to stir in and you can see the salt at the bottom after heavy stirring meaning the water cant dilute the salt anymore. .
The salt water bath over the next two days will completely drain the battery to 0 volts at which point it is no longer dangerous.
The salt water method is the only fully safe way to handle that battery.
What you are describing is just dangerous, for the simple fact that people then think they are safe, as soon as they put the battery into salt water. You even say yourself that it takes days until fully drained. During those days, the battery could still ignite. When that happens, the salt water will not help at all. What then will happen is, that the water will immediately turn into steam. You know what happens if you put water into hot oil - similar effect, just less dangerous. The water will be gone in no time and everything around it starts to burn.
That‘s why we always recommend what I was suggesting in my initial comment. And please don‘t say things like „it is the only fully safe way“. This is just straight up wrong.
What do you mean it is not going to help if it is in water? That is literally the most efficient way to cool it and thus prevent a runaway reaction to begin with.
Oh, it will help, but only for a very short amount of time. Those metals will get pretty hot, the expanding steam will make the water splash out of the bucket and the rest of it will evaporate quickly. The fire will only stop, if the battery reaches a temperature of about 70°C (158°F). For that you need a lot of cooling material.
Yesterday in the news was a fire of a Tesla car battery, needing 36.000 gallons of water to extinguish it. They had to use two hose (the big ones) for over one hour to have it under control.
So if you put a small battery in a pool, then you are safe, I absolutely agree. I only criticize the wrong assumption that a bucket of salt water is the „only safe way“ to handle a battery.
Sorry but that is nonsense. There is not even nearly enough energy in a laptop battery to empty a bucket of water. There is not even enough heat to warm the water a significant amount, which is why it can not even get to the point of a runaway reaction to begin with. The internal short just dissipates the energy slowly, without any spectacular event. Regardless of salt content, but salt would indeed help discharge the battery even without a fault.
And of course there are other ways to handle a battery (regardless of it's health) safely.
Look, I‘m no scientist. I just see the effects in real life. Obviously the amount of material affects the energy effectively released. One job of our fire department is to spread awareness and in those messages, you are better on the safe side and be extra cautious. If you are a scientist or know exactly what you are doing, feel free to handle it the way you want to. Based on the message of OP I knew they were inexperienced. That‘s why I would never recommend solutions which are not super clear and super safe. Water and battery can work - but it can also clearly fail if done wrong.
At the scale of a laptop battery, just putting it somewhere without flammables around is sufficient. A bucket of water will absolutely stop anything from happening due to the strong cooling effect. This is not a car battery where water can not actually reach the individual cells. However, I also understand your concerns.
But if I should think of a way for a random person to deal with a dangerous battery in an enclosed space, a bucket of water would be very high on the list. Even if it is already burning.
You are welcome to disagree, but putting a lipo in salt water is the only safe way to discharge it. Obviously this should be done outside away from any trees or the home.
You should add doing the salt bath outdoors to the post and recommend leaving it there for a couple of weeks to ensure it is fully drained.
Done. Won't matter the downvote brigade already sided with the self proclaimed firefighter.
I learned this from R/C cars many years ago when Lipo came put. It's a tried and true method that many people in the hobby use to make the battery safe for transport to the recycling facilities.
The downvotes are most likely because you said to go 'against what was said' instead of adding to it with the long term solution. It read as if you disagreed with taking it outside where it would be immediately safer.
Are you implying that lithium will only burn on contact with air if it's in a charged battery?