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I'm wondering:

Does cooling a phone in a fridge or freezer damage the battery?

I saw a fair amount of Reddit and Quora posts on whether cooling a phone in a fridge or freezer damage the battery but they give contradictory answers without any evidence or scientific grounding. Does cooling a phone in a fridge or freezer damage the battery?

Does that question suit any SE site? Got closed on Electronics SE and Physics SE. I believe hardware is off-topic on Android SE and phones are off-topic on SU.

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    Wherever the question is posted on the end, consider adding a duration (for how long is the phone to be stored there) and if it's important that the battery is in a phone or could it also be just the battery alone. That would make things easier, removing a discussion if other parts of the phone get damaged. And is the phone turned on or off during could storage. Aren't there also operating temperature ranges given for electrical devices? There might be test results available. As part of research for the question it might be useful to contact the manufacturer about it.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Nov 17 at 8:50

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If you can find a suitable (i.e. notable) claim that it does, then skeptics.se would work.

A notable claim is defined as:

The main way of demonstrating notability is showing the claim being mentioned in the media. Examples include: books, newspapers, mainstream television, or widely-known web-sites including major blogs and Wikipedia. Claims put forward by a celebrity are also automatically considered notable. The idea here is that once a large number of people are exposed to the claim, it is of general interest to validate the claim and either confirm or refute it.

Also claims that can demonstrate that a significant number of people believe it will work there indicating social media posts with many likes may be valid there.

You should exclude claims made for the purposes of comedy and satire as they're differently motivated.

Be sure to take their tour and refer to the help centre there before posting.

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The battery temperature search on the Chemistry stack finds a number of upvoted questions such as the following:

So, the Chemistry stack might be suitable; since I'm not a member of that stack just went on the search results and haven't checked their help and tour pages.

I expect the battery type (e.g. Li-Ion) needs to be specified in the question to get an answer on the Chemistry stack, rather than just more general definition such as a phone battery.

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  • @W.O. I see what you mean about the title of the question. On a quick read of the second link there are some references to the effect of temperature, and a link to Lithium ion battery degradation: what you need to know which contains ..there are three main external stress factors that influence degradation: temperature, state of charge (SoC) and load profile. I.e. possibly relevant to questions about the effect of "battery temperature".
    – Chester Gillon
    Commented Nov 16 at 21:36
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    Oh, fair enough, I'd missed that bit - it's valid then.
    – W.O.
    Commented Nov 16 at 22:02
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Ask the physics stax; It's perfectly appropriate there. Don't ask electrical engineering because they frown on questions about the use of electronics, as opposed to the design. I discovered that just today.

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    The question states that the OP already tried the physics stack unsuccessfully.
    – W.O.
    Commented Nov 17 at 3:37
  • @W.O. Maybe it was seen as too applied there. Otherwise many physicists work in battery research, so a slightly more academically formulated question really should be ontopic there. For example replace iPhone battery with the scientific name of the battery type (Li-ion) and define fridge temperatures and what is meant by damage (lower number of charging cycles, less capacity). And then ask for the reasons why that happens.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Nov 17 at 8:44
  • Formulation, yes. Well, I suppose someone must have done the research at some point as the population (the customer-base) has spread to the Arctic circle after all. @NoDataDumpNoContribution
    – W.O.
    Commented Nov 17 at 9:34
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    "It's perfectly appropriate there." - and how do you know? Just saying this doesn't make it correct.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 17 at 11:52
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    @ShadowWizard Agreed but the opposite is also true: It could be correct even without anyone saying so (or voting for it). It's not my answer but I think the physics part is likely correct. I just happen to have a physics research journal open with an article that deals a lot with battery research and what happens at different temperatures during charging.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Nov 17 at 11:59
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    @NoDataDumpNoContribution well that means such question is related to physics, no doubt on this. However, question is about the Stack Exchange site for physics, and this can be different. If the author here was moderator there, or even "just" very active/high rep user there, I could take their opinion as something which is likely correct and reflects the opinions of others there, but that is not the case.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 17 at 14:16

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