Batteries are bombs. The miracle is that they don’t explode more often.

What stores loads of chemical energy in a tiny space and releases it to explosive effect? I know my language there is deliberately misleading, but there really isn’t that much difference between a battery and a bomb.

Bombs contain a lot more energy. Lacking the requirements for controlled release, and the ability to recharge, you can build bombs from materials that have much higher energy density. But you only need a basic grounding in school chemistry to know that a Lithium-based battery isn’t exactly inert.

I’m not sure if science teachers are still allowed (through time pressures, budget limits, curriculum controls or issues of health and safety) to drop volatile elements into water to show the effects. I hope they are. I still have strong and very positive memories of silvery lumps of sodium, lithium and potassium fizzing around a beaker, popping and flaming. Lithium doesn’t need much encouragement to get wild.

Lithium is the basis for the most common battery chemistry, used in everything from head torches to high-tech shoes. But it isn’t the only component in these batteries that can go bang. The electrolytes are often flammable as well.

Today, this is the price of dense energy storage. Complex chemical cocktails in our pockets and under our pillows to power our prized electronics.

I’m not advocating their removal. The statistical chance of these devices bursting into flames is vanishingly small. But Samsung’s travails are a timely reminder that these devices are powered by science, not magic. You can’t shove that many joules in your pocket without risk.

There’s little alternative right now. We still don’t have an alternative chemistry that offers sufficient energy density without the trade-offs in volatility — and cost. Lithium is neither cheap nor plentiful. Aluminium looks like the best alternative but current prototypes are still in the lab and rely on exotic electrolytes. Fuel cells are interesting but real-world devices remain heavy and prone to triggering difficult questions at airports.

For the time being we are stuck with Lithium-based batteries, which will continue to evolve, with the occasional mis-step like this one.

Consumers have every right to expect that these devices will be safe to use. But they shouldn’t be ignorant of what they are carrying.