The first national compulsory standard for the lithium ion battery safety was implemented officially from August 1.

In recent years, lots of domestic electronics manufacturers are involved with the portable power supply industry, greatly meeting the use demand of the consumers. However, there are some product quality and safety problems along with continuous development of the portable power supply market.
It is encouraging that the first national compulsory standard for safety of the lithium ion battery has been issued and officially implemented from August 1 this year. Its standard No. is GB 31241-2014, with the full name of Safety Requirements for Lithium Ion Battery and Battery Pack Used by Portable Electronics, which includes more than 30 data indexes. Although it is not the national standard for the portable power source, the lithium ion battery is the key safety part of the portable power source (overall equipment), the lithium ion battery used by the portable power source should also meet its requirements after this standard is implemented and the quality and safety of the portable power source will be also defined to some extent. In addition, the National Standard Committee has sent the making plan for the national standard for portable power source General Regulations of Portable Power Sources Used by IT Portable Digital Equipment, which is drafted with the leadership of CESI. It is believed that it will be issued officially soon.
Popular due to Its Convenient and Practicable Features
In recent years, along with further development of the smart mobile phone, Apps with different characteristics such as 4-core or 8-core processor and super screen make people more and more dependent on the mobile phone to listen to the music, watch movies, surfing and play games at any time. However, the electric quantity of the batter equipped for the mobile phone is limited, so that the mobile phone will be powered off due to frequent use when people go out. Therefore, the portable external power source is popular with the "mobile phone fans".
At present, there are lots of brands of portable external power sources for the mobile phone, with different capacity and styles, such as key chain style, style similar to the mobile HDD, mobile phone shell style. Lots of products have not only beautiful appearance design, but also portable feature.
It is reported that because lots of young consumers take the portable external power source as the standard configuration of the smart mobile phone and often surfing, watch movies or play games with mobile phone or use it for commercial activities, the external equipment with higher capacity is more popular. Therefore, such products are well sold in the market.
Frequent Quality Problems
Although rapid development of the portable power source industry greatly meets the selection and use demands of the consumers, lots of products in the market have different qualities, the quality problems and safety accidents often occur due to poor quality of products, which not only affects the normal use of the consumers, but also endangers the personal safety. Last year, Mr. Wang bought a portable power source at the shopping mall and found that his mobile phone could not be started up with a black screen after charging it. Then, he brought it to the maintenance personnel for inspection. It was found that the black screen was resulted from unstable discharge of the portable power source, which caused burnout of the mobile phone due to over-current. One of my friends bought a portable power source of some brand in a hurry when he went out and the portable power source is spontaneously combusted when he charged the mobile phone, which almost caused a safety accident. In fact, such cases are not exceptions. Along with hot sales of the portable power sources, their quality problems are frequent.

According to the introduction of the experts, the core part of the portable power source is the internal battery cell. There are two common types, including polymer solid lithium ion battery cell and liquid lithium ion battery cell, which is the commonly referred 18650 battery cell. Because the former is more expensive than the latter, the 18650 battery cell is selected for lots of portable power sources. The reprocessed 18650 battery cell is used for the portable power source with poor quality, which is the recycled waste computer battery cell. If the production process of such battery cell does not reach the standard, it will result in spontaneous explosion, which will not only burns the mobile phone, but also endangers the personal safety.

In order to meet the customer's demand for rapid charging the mobile phone, some manufacturers intentionally set the output voltage 5.1V or 5.2V, which brings serious potential safety hazards although the charging time is short. If such portable power source is used for a long time, it will make the mobile phone hot due to high voltage and burn or fuse the parts of the circuit protection system, and thus the mobile phone charging will be not protected.

Except for mobile phone burnout and spontaneous combustion, the problems such as lower electricity quantity and failure of recharging after several times are main complaints of the consumer. Lots of manufacturers also cheat in terms of "high capacity". At present, there are lots of external power sources with the capacity of more than 1,000mAh in the market, but the mobile phone recharging times cannot reach the defined ones during the customer's use. It is also common to falsely represent the capacity.
Industrial Standard Needed

In recent years, the threshold of the portable power source manufacturing industry is low, but the market demand is higher and higher, so that lots of manufacturers of electronics such as mobile phone are involved with the power source industry. However, there are lots of serious illegal cases in the fiercely competitive market. Therefore, the consumers should pay much attention to them when buying the portable power source. According to the introduction of the industrial peers, because there are no uniform national standard or industrial standard for the portable power source, different manufacturers use different battery cells and circuit boards. What's worse, some manufacturers even directly purchase the inferior battery cells and circuit boards and then assemble them into the shell. Therefore, the product quality cannot be guaranteed.
Less electricity quantity and quick consumption are resulted from inferior battery cell. The actual electricity quantity of the normal portable power source is 60% above of the marked electricity quantity, while that of the inferior product is only 40% or even lower. In addition, the inferior battery cell has obvious difference in terms of performance, especially the discharge stability and actual service life. It is worth noting that the inferior battery cell has some problems in terms of the safety performance. It will explode in the extreme environment such as high temperature during use, especially the portable power source with high capacity. Once explosion, the consequences are very serious. The author found during interview that it was difficult for the consumers and some manufacturers to protect themselves, because there is no standard. The consumers cannot get claims in case of any problem during use.
It is reported that in the compulsory national standard of Safety Requirements for Lithium Ion Battery and Battery Pack Used by Portable Electronics which is to be implemented, according to the test indexes, the test items of the battery pack include more than 30 tests, such as battery pack environment test, battery pack safety test, safety test of the protective circuit of the battery pack, safety test of the protective circuit of the system, etc. except for the common general safety requirements (safe operating parameters, mark requirement, alarm instructions and durability). Of course, only the official implementation of Safety Requirements for Lithium Ion Battery and Battery Pack Used by Portable Electronics may define the manufacturing behavior, enhance the product quality and protect the rights of the consumer.
However, the peers in the industry prompted the consumer to select the product of the famous manufacturer when buying the portable power source, because their quality is stable and production and sales volume is huge. In case of any problem, the consumer may ask for corresponding services; the output standard voltage of 5V should be also identified. Please do not buy the fake products. Now, there are lots of inferior portable power sources with beautiful packaging in the market, but their internal circuits are unsatisfactory, with the efficiency of 60%～70%. And there are also some potential safety hazards. Therefore, the consumer should pay much attention to avoiding being cheated.