A CCTV video capturing a rather horrifying incident of a mobile battery exploding inside the mouth of a young boy has gripped the internet.
Shared by a netizen on social media platform X (formerly twitter), the footage shows a young boy biting a mobile phone’s lithium battery at the counter of a mobile shop moments before the battery exploded.
Shockingly, the footage reveals that the boy who looked like he was in his early teenage was chewing the battery in front of four men including the mobile shop owner.
Interestingly none of them told the boy to stop or removed the battery from his hands, before it was too late.
What does the video reveal?
The footage, which has since gone viral, shows the youngster standing by a service counter before he inexplicably decided to bite down on the component.
The pressure from the boy’s teeth likely punctured the battery’s casing, causing a chemical reaction known as the thermal runaway which led to the battery exploding near the boy’s mouth with flames.
Witnesses and shop staff rushed to the boy’s aid as the small device erupted. He was taken to hospital shortly after to be treated for painful burns.
“Shocking incident inside a mobile shop when a boy began biting on a Lithium phone battery. Within seconds, the battery exploded, leaving him seriously injured. The injured boy was rushed for medical treatment,” a netizen wrote on X while sharing the video online.
Later in the clip, one could also see the mobile shop owner panicking in fear for his life and throwing the burnt battery away.
What is a mobile phone battery made of?
The mobile phone battery is a sealed container, featuring concentrated chemicals and an electrical charge. Damaging the casing with the mouth can be seriously harmful to one’s oral tissues, as the sealed system immediately fails and releases its internal components.
Phone lithium-ion batteries are primarily composed of a lithium-based cathode (positive electrode), a graphite anode (negative electrode), and a liquid electrolyte, designed to move ions between electrodes for energy storage.
The electrolyte within a lithium-ion battery is highly corrosive. If the battery is breached, this liquid can cause severe chemical burns to the mouth, throat, tongue, and food pipe. The intense heat generated during the thermal runaway process can cause severe burns to oral tissue, lips, and face.
While the status of the boy’s injury presently remains unknown. Following the video, experts have laid out warnings on the social media platform asking people to not do such things either for ‘fun’ or ‘viral videos’.