With the rise in portable devices such as laptops, cell phones, MP3 players and cordless power tools, the need for rechargeable batteries has grown substantially in recent years. The concept of the rechargeable battery has been around since 1859, when French physicist Gaston Plante invented the lead acid cell, which would later become the world's first rechargeable battery. That same chemistry is still used in today's car battery.
The basic idea behind the rechargeable battery is simple: when electrical energy is applied to the battery, the electron flow from negative to positive that occurs during discharge is reversed and power is restored. This requires an adapter in the case of devices with built-in batteries or for standard nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride batteries, the most common multi-use rechargeable batteries used today in your remote control, flashlight or digital camera.
Car batteries are one of the oldest kinds of rechargeable batteries and in fact, the electric car predates its gas-powered cousin. In a standard car, there is a single lead-acid SLI battery that supplies power to the starter, lights and ignition system. The battery charger in this case is the alternator, a clever device that converts gasoline power to electrical energy and distributes it where needed. In electric and hybrid cars, traction batteries are used to power the vehicle down the road. Traction batteries come in many varieties, from lead acid, to nickel-cadmium, nickel metal hydride and lithium ion.
The recharging rate has improved substantially over the years and is broken down into three categories:
Slow: 14-16 hours
Quick: 3-6 hours
Fast: Less than one hour
The rate of charge is determined by how much electrical current is allowed into the battery by the charger. Some batteries can handle higher voltage in a shorter amount of time without overheating, while others need a lesser voltage applied over a longer period of time. The quicker the rate of charge, the more chance there is of over charging, which can ruin a battery's chance of holding its charge. The key in avoiding an over charge is the ability to dissipate the charging current once maximum power has been reached. Most chargers have built-in voltage regulators do this, allowing you to safely leave your cell phone or computer plugged in overnight.
The speed and effectiveness of the charge depends largely on the quality of the charger itself. Chargers vary in performance based on the price tag and like most products you get what you pay for. Chargers are generally designed for specific cell chemistries, although newer universal chargers have sensors built in that identify the cell type and react appropriately. There are also smart chargers that use a microprocessor to monitor temperature, voltage and state of charge, which is the percentage of power available compared to its full capacity.
One common problem in nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries is something known as the memory effect. This is when the battery is continually recharged before it has discharged more than 50 percent of its power, causing it to essentially forget that it could fully discharge to begin with. Memory effect is caused by the formation of hard-to-dissolve cadmium crystals deep within the battery. Cadmium crystals are an unavoidable by-product of discharge; the trick is to keep them small enough to be reformed as cadmium during the charging process. When a battery is not fully discharged, the crystals deep within the battery are not affected by the influx of electrical current, so they are not reformed as cadmium and can grow into the troublesome larger cadmium crystals. The battery will still function normally, but is maxed out at 50 percent. The memory effect can be avoided by fully cycling the battery once every two to three weeks by allowing it to discharge completely, and then fully recharge.
It's important to remember that no battery, rechargeable or otherwise, will last forever. All batteries suffer from aging cells and the longer they are used, the less capacity they ultimately will have. Rechargeable batteries are still a great way to save money and reduce waste.
Now, let's take a look at battery arrangement
Battery Reactions and Chemistry
© Photographer: Anthony Berenyi |
Agency: Dreamstime.com
A car has a lead-acid battery,
which has a reversible reaction.
In any battery, an electrochemical reaction occurs like the ones described on the previous page. This reaction moves electrons from one pole to the other. The actual metals and electrolytes used control the voltage of the battery -- each different reaction has a characteristic voltage. For example, here's what happens in one cell of a car's lead-acid battery:
The cell has one plate made of lead and another plate made of lead dioxide, with a strong sulfuric acid electrolyte in which the plates are immersed.
Lead combines with SO4 (sulfate) to create PbSO4 (lead sulfate), plus one electron.
Lead dioxide, hydrogen ions and SO4 ions, plus electrons from the lead plate, create PbSO4 and water on the lead dioxide plate.
As the battery discharges, both plates build up PbSO4 and water builds up in the acid. The characteristic voltage is about 2 volts per cell, so by combining six cells you get a 12-volt battery.
A lead-acid battery has a nice feature -- the reaction is completely reversible. If you apply current to the battery at the right voltage, lead and lead dioxide form again on the plates so you can reuse the battery over and over. In a zinc-carbon battery, there is no easy way to reverse the reaction because there is no easy way to get hydrogen gas back into the electrolyte.
Modern Battery Chemistry
Modern batteries use a variety of chemicals to power their reactions. Typical battery chemistries include:
Zinc-carbon battery - Also known as a standard carbon battery, zinc-carbon chemistry is used in all inexpensive AA, C and D dry-cell batteries. The electrodes are zinc and carbon, with an acidic paste between them that serves as the electrolyte.
Alkaline battery - Alkaline chemistry is used in common Duracell and Energizer batteries, the electrodes are zinc and manganese-oxide, with an alkaline electrolyte.
Lithium-iodide battery - Lithium-iodide chemistry is used in pacemakers and hearing aides because of their long life.
Lead-acid battery - Lead-acid chemistry is used in automobiles, the electrodes are made of lead and lead-oxide with a strong acidic electrolyte (rechargeable).
Nickel-cadmium battery - The electrodes are nickel-hydroxide and cadmium, with potassium-hydroxide as the electrolyte (rechargeable).
Nickel-metal hydride battery - This battery is rapidly replacing nickel-cadmium because it does not suffer from the memory effect that nickel-cadmiums do (rechargeable).
Lithium-ion battery - With a very good power-to-weight ratio, this is often found in high-end laptop computers and cell phones (rechargeable).
Zinc-air battery - This battery is lightweight and rechargeable.
Zinc-mercury oxide battery - This is often used in hearing-aids.
Silver-zinc battery - This is used in aeronautical applications because the power-to-weight ratio is good.
As you can see, several of these batteries are rechargeable. What makes a battery rechargeable? In the next section, we'll check out how rechargeable batteries work
The first battery was created by Alessandro Volta in 1800. To create his battery, he made a stack by alternating layers of zinc, blotting paper soaked in salt water, and silver. This arrangement was known as a voltaic pile. The top and bottom layers of the pile must be different metals. If you attach a wire to the top and bottom of the pile, you can measure a voltage and a current from the pile. The pile can be stacked as high as you like, and each layer will increase the voltage by a fixed amount.
In the 1800s, before the invention of the electrical generator (the generator was not invented and perfected until the 1870s), the Daniell cell was extremely common for operating telegraphs and doorbells. The Daniell cell is also known by three other names:
Crowfoot cell (because of the typical shape of the zinc electrode)
Gravity cell (because gravity keeps the two sulfates separated)
Wet cell (because it uses liquids for the electrolytes, as opposed to the modern dry cell)
The Daniell cell is a wet cell consisting of copper and zinc plates and copper and zinc sulfates. To make the Daniell cell, the copper plate is placed at the bottom of a glass jar. Copper sulfate solution is poured over the plate to half-fill the jar. Then a zinc plate is hung in the jar and a zinc sulfate solution is poured very carefully into the jar. Copper sulfate is denser than zinc sulfate, so the zinc sulfate "floats" on top of the copper sulfate. Obviously, this arrangement does not work very well in a flashlight, but it works fine for stationary applications.
If you have access to zinc sulfate and copper sulfate, you can try making your own Daniell cell. In the next section, we'll show you how to do it
In many devices that use batteries - such as portable radios and flashlights, you do not use just one cell at a time. You normally group them together serially to form higher voltages, or in parallel to form higher currents. In a serial arrangement, the voltages add up. In a parallel arrangement, the currents add up. The following diagram shows these two arrangements:
The upper arrangement is called a parallel arrangement. If you assume that each cell produces 1.5 volts, then four batteries in parallel will also produce 1.5 volts, but the current supplied will be four times that of a single cell. The lower arrangement is called a serial arrangement. The four voltages add together to produce 6 volts.
Normally, when you buy a pack of batteries, the package will tell you the voltage and current rating. For example, a digital camera might use four nickel-cadmium batteries that are rated at 1.25 volts and 500 milliamp-hours for each cell. The milliamp-hour rating means, theoretically, that the cell can produce 500 milliamps for one hour. You can slice and dice the milliamp-hour rating in lots of different ways. A 500 milliamp-hour battery could produce 5 milliamps for 100 hours, or 10 milliamps for 50 hours, or 25 milliamps for 20 hours, or (theoretically) 500 milliamps for 1 hour, or even 1,000 milliamps for 30 minutes.
However, batteries are not quite that linear. For one thing, all batteries have a maximum current they can produce -- a 500 milliamp-hour battery cannot produce 30,000 milliamps for 1 second, because there is no way for the battery's chemical reactions to happen that quickly. And at higher current levels, batteries can produce a lot of heat, which wastes some of their power. Also, many battery chemistries have longer- or shorter-than-expected lives at very low current levels. But milliamp-hour ratings are somewhat linear over a normal range of use. Using the amp-hour rating, you can roughly estimate how long the battery will last under a given load.
If you arrange four of these 1.25-volt, 500 milliamp-hour batteries in a serial arrangement, you get 5 volts (1.25 x 4) at 500 milliamp-hours. If you arrange them in parallel, you get 1.25 volts at 2,000 (500 x 4) milliamp-hours.
Have you ever looked inside a normal 9-volt battery?
Manufacturers caution against disassembling batteries, to avoid personal injury. However, a partially disassembled 9-volt battery would look like this.
It contains six, very small batteries producing 1.5 volts each in a serial arrangement!
Batteries have proven to be one of the most important inventions of the 20th century and are becoming more so as we continue the shift toward a more mobile lifestyle. In the future, batteries will grow smaller, more powerful and longer lasting in order to keep up with our fast paced, portable world.
Batteries are practically essential devices but present a whole host of problems. Over time they can have trouble retaining a charge. Some stop working altogether. Others overheat or leak or even explode. They're also rigid and sometimes bulky. Then how about, instead of your standard AA or lithium-ion, a flexible, incredibly thin battery that could be powered by blood or sweat? Seems like an improvement, right?
A group of scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute claims they've created just such a battery, one that uses the electrolytes naturally found in bodily fluids. The results of the research, detailed in the Aug. 13, 2007, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are generating some excitement as part of a new crop of "bio-batteries" that run off of bodily fluids or other organic compounds. (The RPI team claims that theirs could even run on tears or urine.)
The battery is not only as thin as paper; it essentially is paper. At least 90 percent of the battery is made from cellulose, which makes up traditional paper and other paper products [source: RPI]. Aligned carbon nanotubes make up the other 10 percent, give the paper its conductive abilities and also make it black. The nanotubes are imprinted in the very fabric of the paper, creating what's called a nanocomposite paper. One of the paper's authors said that the battery "looks, feels and weighs the same as paper" [source: RPI].
Using nanotechnology, the battery's small size, flexibility and replenishing electrolyte source -- that is, as long as you eat -- make it ideal for medical applications. When using the battery away from the human body, scientists soaked the paper in an ionic fluid (a salt in liquid form), which provides the electrolytes.
The battery's paper-like construction grants it significant flexibility. The RPI research team believes that the battery could, in the future, be printed in long sheets, which could then be cut into small, custom-shaped batteries. The nanocomposite paper can have holes poked in it or be cut into unusual shapes and continue to function. Several sheets could be lumped together to power medical implants, such as pacemakers, artificial hearts or advanced prosthetics. The battery would easily fit under the skin without causing any discomfort.
Because the ionic liquid used doesn't freeze or evaporate like water, the battery could be employed at a wide range of temperatures: from -100 degrees Fahrenheit up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Its temperature resistance and light weight mean that manufacturers of automobiles and airplanes -- both of which require light, durable materials -- may come calling.
The researchers behind the battery claim that their device is unique because it can act "as both a high-energy battery and a high-power supercapacitor" [source: RPI]. Supercapacitors allow for large, quick bursts of energy, potentially extending the technology's already wide range of applications.
The battery, which is considered environmentally friendly because of its lack of chemicals and high cellulose content, was announced in the summer of 2007, but it may be years before it's ready to stream off production lines in long sheets. The RPI research team says that, in the meantime, they're trying to boost the battery's efficiency and to figure out the best method for production