Talk:Rechargeable battery

Discussion from 2005

I removed a two-paragraph rant by someone at 70.85.114.26. Apparently people who tell you to discharge batteries all the way before charging them don't know what they're talking about. Whatever. If you have some facts to back up that assertion then show them. Either way, it was not written in a a very professional tone. Imroy 22:42, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

The statement that all rechargeable batteries should be fully discharged contradicts the article on lithium ion batteries. That article's assertions are corroborated by the Apple page referenced therein, and the Battery University page also referenced specifically cautions against frequent full discharges, though stating that a full discharge can occasionally be necessary to allow fuel gage synchronisation.

In its current state, this article is silent about whether to discharge fully or not, and I believe it should be, as it varies depending on the battery type.

On a related note, the description of the reverse charging problem does not match that of the article to which it links.

LX 06:24, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

I read this WP article after HP sent this link to me in a newsletter: Battery basics. Although short, I found it to be informative. Wasn't sure WP editors would like that link on main page, so I'm noting it here. Maybe someone else is motivated to incorporate what that page says and add it to the WP article. <>< tbc 22:16, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Structure

Proposed structure for rechargable battery types´ articles:

• {{batteries}} (don´t forget to include the energy/consumer-price).
• History, including inventor, invention date, commercialization.
• Applications
• Construction. Anode, cathode, electrolyte, separator.
• Electrochemistry
• Overcharging and other troubles (reversal charging, overdischarging, exploding, memory effect, dendritic shorting, ...)
• Environmental consequences.
• Comparation to other batteries.
• See also, references and external links.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nopetro (talk • contribs).

Hi Nopetro, welcome to Wikipedia. Yes, your idea for the structure of the page is a great one. I talked about doing a overhaul on this article, you should refer to the comment I posted located somewhat below this one.- RiseRobotRise 09:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Rechargable battery types

From Battery (electricity): " Also known as secondary batteries or accumulators.

• Lead-acid battery - used in vehicles, alarm systems and uninterruptible power supplies. The major advantage of this chemistry is its low cost - a large lead-acid battery (e.g. 70Ah) is relatively inexpensive compared to batteries based on other chemistries, but this is most likely due to its popularity. However, this historically important battery type has a lower energy/mass than other battery types now available (see below).
  • Absorbed glass mat
  • Gel battery
• Lithium ion battery - used in laptops (notebook PCs), modern camera phones, some rechargeable MP3 players and most other portable rechargeable digital equipment. This relatively modern battery type has a very high energy/mass (i.e., a light battery that will store a lot of energy) and shows no "memory effect". Lithium ion batteries are now pushing out NiMH technology.
• Lithium ion polymer battery - similar characteristics to lithium-ion, but with slightly less energy/mass. This battery type can be shaped according to need, as in ultra-thin (1 mm thick) cells for PDAs.
• NaS battery
• Nickel-iron battery
• Nickel metal hydride battery
• Nickel-cadmium battery - used in many domestic applications but being superseded by Li-Ion and Ni-MH types. This chemistry gives the longest cycle life (over 1500 cycles), but has low energy/mass compared to Li-Ion and Ni-MH. Ni-Cd cells using older technology suffer from memory effect; this has been reduced drastically in modern batteries. Toxicity hazard with the heavy metal, Cadmium.
• Nickel-zinc battery
• Molten salt battery
• Silver Zinc battery - This once attractive technology had the highest energy density (prior to lithium technologies), and was primarily developed for aircraft use. The worldwide rise in silver prices saw its demise. It was used as the power source for the 'moon buggy' on the later Apollo moon missions."

It would be included and merged in this article. --HybridBoy 08:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge with secondary cell

Should this article be merged with secondary cell? There is a primary cell and a secondary cell article, so I think the final names should match. For example, if the name of the article is "rechargeable battery" or "secondary battery", the primary cell article would be changed to "primary battery". -- Kjkolb 04:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I would second this proposal. By definition a secondary battery is: a battery that is in an "inactive" state until charged with electricity (i.e. it is a secondary source) which is almost identical to a rechargeable battery: a battery that can be recharged with electricity. It would be a good idea to merge the two sites and add a redirect link. Ahw001 07:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would oppose this; they may be very similar terms, but the term "rechargable battery" is simple and easy to understand, a well as being part of the laymans vernacular. I would suggest this page be a simple discussion of the types, application and devices of secondary cells, where as the "secondary cell" article is a discussion of the the theory behind them. I believe the seperation will work, as no novices will be overwhelmed, and no experts will be patronised. Links between the two should be fine - Jack (talk) 20:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If history of a secondary cell, involving Edison's work, was added, then they should stay separated. However, if the page is merged in it's current state, then there really isn't any conflict; just a difference in terms used to describe the cell.

I agree that the two should not be merged. The average person doesn't know what a secondary cell is and will probably be confused when they get redirected to it. Jack is right, we should not merge the two. E.boyer7 16:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

current output

I've been told that some lead acid batteries have a few thick plates. Those batteries are more rugged, less liable to break in high vibration environments, etc, but have lower "cold cranking amps". Other lead acid batteries are designed with many thin plates. The increased surface area helps give those batteries higher "cold cranking amps". (If they had twice as many plates, they would have twice the "cold cranking amps"). Both kinds of batteries have the same output voltage (because they are lead acid) and roughly the same capacity (the total volume of lead in all the plates is about the same).

So my understanding is that, given a particular battery chemistry (which determines the voltage) and a particular mass or volume (which determines the total energy capacity), the maximum output current could still vary over a wide range depending on the specifics of the design. (That current is measured in "C".)

But today I read 2 things which contradict that understanding -- they claim the maximum output current *also* depends on battery chemistry:

• Battery Basics by Ed Nisley claims "SLA batteries can provide average currents [up to] 1 C ... NiCd batteries can supply much higher average currents, up to 2 C, with NiMH batteries at 0.5 C and lithium ion batteries at 1 C under ideal conditions."
• the secondary cell article claims "If these chemicals are known, predictions on maximum voltage and currents of the cells can be made."

So does the current a battery can supply depend only on its materials? Or does it also depend on the surface area of the plates?

-- DavidCary --70.189.75.148 14:44, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

As a side note, thick-plated lead-acid batteries are called "deep-cycle" lead-acid batteries. And, the answer to your question may lie in the "Deep cycle batteries" section of the article on Lead-acid battery. E.boyer7 09:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Table of battery comparisons

Can someone please fill in what the article does not yet know? Its beyond me, and I think a table link that (filled) would be very useful. Perhaps this (Secondary_cell#Advantages.2FDisadvantages) will help - Jack (talk) 20:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• I would also appreciate a column listing the electric reduction potential (the voltage of one cell). Perhaps it would also make sense to list the number of cells in a typical package (ex. Lead-Acid batteries are typically packaged as 6 2.1V cells). I don't know if we could easily do both in one column, but the table is getting rather crowded as it is, so I don't know if we would want two columns. Also, would it make more sense to list energy density in terms of Wh/kg? Watts seem to be more commonly used in electrical systems than Joules (although the chemists would probably prefer Joules). Mbauman 14:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• I just made some major changes to the table. I added several new columns (I think it's 9 new columns). The data for these columns is listed in the "Battery specifications" table on each of the batteries' pages, but I do not have time to fill it in right now. Rather, I am hoping that these new columns will encourage others to fill in the information and perhaps add more. I think this table should be a full comparison of each property of each battery chemistry. But, what I am worried about is the table's width. Right now it looks kinda bad because all the columns are rather narrow, but I can't figure out a way to make them any wider; it seems that Wikipedia does not allow a table wider than it is now. Does anyone know how to overcome this width constraint? Or, maybe the battery chemistries could be listed at the top and the properties on the side, which would allow each field to be wider for a given overall table width. Also another possibility would be to remove the description of the battery from the table (like, put it above the table in point-form) and keep all the other properties that can easily be compared, like Wh/kg, nominal cell voltage, etc. E.boyer7 09:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, I made some major changes to the table. My revisions include removing the description, chemical composition, applications, and development status fields from the table and putting them in a brief description of each type of battery above the table. I did this because these things are too big to fit in a table. Now, all that is in the table are numbers, which don't take up much space. The information in the table was sourced from each battery's page. So, if that information is updated on the battery's main page then it should also be updated on this page. I hope everyone likes my changes. Perhaps an improvement would be to invert the table (aka, put the battery names on the top and the properties on the side). I think it would be more readable that way. I didn't do that in this revision because I didn't think about it until I had finished the table. E.boyer7 03:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Freezing

You guys need to add a section discussing the merits of freezing or refridgerating rechargeable batteries to rejuvenate them (restore their ability to hold a charge). Trust me this is not a myth. I have quite a few batteries in the freezer right now.--God Ω War 01:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Zinc-air battery definition

From the table this was removed, then readded, now I've moved it here, pending removal:

Zinc-air battery

While this is technically a fuel cell, it is sold on the retail market in the form of a single-use long-lasting emergency cell phone battery that cannot be recharged.

To me, if the zinc-air battery is neither a battery or rechargeable, it doesn't belong in a table about rechargeable batteries - Jack (talk) 22:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Charge/discharge efficiency

I'd love to see more charge/discharge efficiency data (or a link to data) like what is currently provided in the NaS battery description. This would be useful for comparing batteries when the cost of the charging electricty is significant (think battery powered vehicles, batteries charged with solar cells, etc.)

Silent on silver.

There is no mention in the article regarding silver-based rechargable battery technology. They are widely used in space research and military appliactions. 195.70.32.136 08:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add it if you want to. Be sure to use sources when appropriate. A simple way to do it is to put the url in brackets, like [url], after the material. -- Kjkolb 08:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[1] doesn't link to anything

In the section about super-iron batteries, there is what I assume to be a reference link, [1]. However, it doesn't actually link to anywhere on the page.

They're footnotes for the Rechargeable_battery#Notes section, which I think is unnecessary. Certainly we shouldn't have to tag every instance of, for example, 'light'. A simple terminology key below the table would serve the same purpose without conflicting with our standard footnote system. Feezo (Talk) 01:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no footnote near "super iron". Feezo, according to his last change, seems to have assumed that you mean "l" (lower case "L", not the number one). As the one who put the footnotes there in the first place, I have to agree that they're not optimal. The reason why I chose footnotes over a terminology key was that I was concerned people would not be aware of the list at the bottom, since it's such a long list. However, this could be addressed by internal links as well. I'm fine with either way. However, I disagree with Feezo's deletion of the "l. I have no problem if you replace all footnotes, or not even if you replace all all "l" footnotes, but if you only replace one of them and leave the other you introduce an inconsistency that doesn't serve any purpose at all. — Sebastian 06:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I changed the solitary use of "lightweight" back to "light^l". I fail to see the advantage of using "lightweight" over "light". Few people will assume that "light" in this context means "bright", so the "weight" doesn't really add any information. A more correct description would be "high energy density". If you can find a way to abbreviate this in a way that is immediately intuitive for our readers, I'm all for it. — Sebastian 06:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Reverting to previous version of article

I would like to know why Eagles 101 deleted all my edits on both the main page and the discussion page by reverting back to a previous version. I thought I had made some good edits, especially to the comparison section, and as it stands I see this as an act of vandalism. So, Eagles 101 please provide a reason for doing this. E.boyer7 20:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

As it turns out, that user didn't just delete your posts from this page and its discussion. He did the same to you on a few other rechargeable battery pages such as Lead-acid battery, Nickel-cadmium battery, Nickel metal hydride battery, Lithium ion battery, and Lithium ion polymer battery. Check out the history on those pages. Another interesting thing is that this user is an administrator (User:Eagle_101). But, why would an administrator do something like this?; I thought administrators are the ones who are supposed to prevent this stuff. All they ended up doing was impeding good progress. The edits you did were good and I hope they aren't taken down again. Ferrari-eric 02:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Nickel Oxy Hydroxide?

Firstly, I'm fairly new to wikipedia, but I came to this article because I saw a new battery type in the stores that isn't specifically described on this page: NiOX marketed by Duracell. Is this the same as a Nickel-Iron battery, as it has Nickel(III) oxide-hydroxide as its cathode? Or does the designation refer specifically to the electrolyte? While I wasn't able to find any good information on NiOX with a cursory 2 minute search on Google, I though I should bring it to the attention of this community. DuncanB 21:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

in the recharge bit it says;

Use of a hand generator is also possible, but it is not clear if such devices are commercially made.

well they are i have one for my phone

Recharging while power is on

I've heard that leaving a small device (such as a cell phone or PDA) on while recharging can shorten the life of a battery. Is there any merit to this? D4S 06:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge

I propose that secondary cell be merged into this article. The secondary cell article is essentially a short duplicate of the information in this article. In addition, there is a very high level of overlap between the subjects, not just the articles. -- Kjkolb 14:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be no objections ... — Sebastian 21:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Can rechargeables damage devices?

I have a high-power red laser pointer (containing a standard silicon laser) that runs for about 2 hours on two single-use CR123A 3V 1000mAh cells (total voltage around 6 volts). I wish to use rechargeable batteries of the same voltage/power but have been told by the seller that rechargeables could damage the laserpointer. Is it really possible for rechargeables which provide exactly the same voltage and power (3v, 1000mAh per cell) to cause damage?

Sorry if this is not the right place to ask such a question, but I knew the clever people at Wikipedia might have the answer :)

Thanks in advance for any help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.110.75.70 (talk) 14:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

Some unnamed discussions from May and June 2007

I was looking for a nickel-hydrogen battery info (the kind used for energy storage on the International Space Station), but no luck. I feel it definitely fits here. Tomb3513 17:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)tomb3513

I believe rechargeable alkaline batteries exist... Does someone know more about them? --User:Krubo

[Answer, from GuestJustPassinThrough: Yes, they do exist; search for terms: "rechargeable alkaline manganese" (RAM batteries) and/or brand name "Rayovac Renewal" in a good search engine. A comparison & enviromental notes can be found at this PDF file: http://www.nema.org/gov/ehs/committees/drybat/upload/NEMABatteryBrochure2.pdf The quick thing to note is, each rechargeable battery technology has its pros and cons, and some are best suited for certain applications. One of rechargeable alkaline's pluses is 1.5 volts per cell, vs. 1.2 volts for NiMH or NiCad, but it has other drawbacks in comparison.]

In the section on recharging batteries, there's a confusing passage which suddenly starts talking about peak times on the electric grid and solar generators. Probably belongs in an article on solar power or electrical distribution systems, as it doesn't seem to have much to do with actually recharging batteries. Woogs 15:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a Rewrite?

This article reads more like a technical manual rather than an encyclopedic article on rechargeable batteries. I don’t think its necessary to have a brief paragraph on every conceivable battery type there is, followed by a comparison chart, which talks about voltages and other technical stuff.

Instead, why not talk about the social dynamics and impact of the rechargeable battery? The history of it, how did it come about, who uses it, how environmental friendly it is, or isn’t, on what occasions its preferable to use a rechargeable battery, or non rechargeable. How does it fair against any non-rechargeable batteries, and future of the battery, possible any USB based batteries. - RiseRobotRise 10:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and write about the history and stuff, but the technical stuff is also important. And just to note, we shouldn't be speculating on wikipedia - so the future of the battery should be left mostly alone, unless there are some particularly good quotes. USB "based" batteries aren't really.. part of what a rechargeable battery is. Seems like kind of a stupid feature - like building in a recharger on every battery... awful. Fresheneesz 22:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand about wikipedia not being a place for predictions, but if there were any quotes from reputable sources available out there, we should definitely use them.

I do think USB based rechargers/batteries go in the category of rechargeable batteries, but I'm no real expert on them. I'm not the most knowledgeable person on this topic, but yeah, that was kinda my point. I really wrote that comment in the viewpoint of the curious reader, not the knowledgeable expert. You do have a good point about some of the technical aspect of the article, but I don't think it should encompass 90% of the article itself. The article on Incandescent light bulbs or maybe even the article about Wi-Fi is more like what I think this article should be like. -RiseRobotRise 05:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Lithium batteries are evolving rapidly, and both this article and specific Lithium battery article are out of date or downright misleading. For example, the article claims that carbon is always used as anode in lithium cells. While this was true some time ago, its not anymore. Here is a relatively thorough and up to date overview: http://www.mpoweruk.com/lithiumS.htm Savuporo 12:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Advantages and disadvantages don't add up

I was just in the midst of moving the comparing texts into the table when I noticed that the descriptions of advantages and disadvantages don't add up. So far, I found two examples:

• "short life" is described to be a disadvantage of Li ion batteries; the table says the live for 1200 cycles. By contrast, the description for NiCd boasts a long life, but with 1500 cycles it is hardly any longer.
• "high energy density" is described as an advantage of NiZn, but with 60 Wh/kg it is in the same range as NiCd, which is described as having the disadvantage of a low energy density.

I'm undecided what to do about it; maybe I'll take a short break and see what others have to say about this in the meantime. — Sebastian 23:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I went ahead and finished the move into the table; I just couldn't leave it in this intermediate state. Maybe it's a good thing we have the table; these discrepancies wouldn't have been so apparent otherwise. — Sebastian 00:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

With tables like this you can never be precise. Li ion cells with lithiated cobalt oxide positives generally give around 500-600 cycles, but cells with lithiated mixed oxides of nickel-cobalt-aluminum can cycle 3000-5000 times. I recall that Ni-Zn cells have high energy density in Wh/l but the specific energy in Wh/kg may not be so good - I have to check my sources. The big problem with any cell with a zinc negative is dendritic growth, hence the short life. - BatteryGuy 02:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The table lists "lithium ion" whereas there are lots of different lithium ion chemistries on market. Aforementioned Li-Co, lithium manganese and lithium iron phosphate, not to mention all the other variations tried in specialty uses and labs. At least the ones currently available on market should not be lumped in together, as they have completely different safety and performance characteristicst Savuporo 09:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Anodes and cathodes?

I'm having trouble with the use of 'anode' and 'cathode' to describe the electrodes. The anode is the electrode undergoing oxidation, so on charge the positive is the anode and on discharge it's the negative. The lithium battery community has this bad habit because they carried the terminology over from the time when all lithium batteries were primaries. The fact that lots of people have the same bad habit doesn't make it correct. I think everything should be changed to 'positive' and 'negative'. Does anyone have a problem with this? - BatteryGuy 02:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

History?

The current version of the page has only one sentence about a 2008 development. I suspect there is more history than that ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.210.199.233 (talk) 04:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Table?

how about making the heading of the comparison table stationary and just its contents scrollable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.25.69.158 (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The Battery Types table is rendering really ugly right now because entries in the Advantages and Disadvantages columns are WAY too long, making them word-wrap. Thus, some of the Advantages columns are wrapping to 9 lines, making the whole row take up 9 lines even though almost all of the other columns only need 1 line. Very inefficient. As a result, the table takes up too much space, causing the reader to have to scroll all over the place in order to compare values and see the headings. I'm going to prune comments out of those two columns very aggressively, especially w.r.t. stuff that just summarizes the specs of that technology ('heavy', 'high power') already described in numbers in the table. I'm also going to completely delete the Firefly Energy row, since it contained no actual data, bordered on being an advertisement, and might just be vaporware.jtoomim 18:34, 3 April 2008 (PST)

Restoring Table

The table appears to have been completely lost in mid April without any particular mention of why. As the section at the moment seems a bit broken I will restore the last intact version of the table I can find. I understand there has been issues with the table, but simply removing the whole thing leaves the article in a worse state. Perhaps dropping some of the columns is a better idea? 85.224.219.81 (talk) 00:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have trimmed the table a bit and restored it. I removed the advantages/disadvantages columns, the year of introduction, possible applications and DOD. While these columns may be interesting they occupied too much space causing the table to break the page. If you find them relevant I'd suggest making a second table rather than increasing the size of the existing one. I also removed the grouping of technologies since this was a bit redundant and contributed to the size of the table. 85.224.219.81 (talk) 00:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

That was definitely vandalism. The table was removed from the article, as well as other content, by 121.246.214.127 that entirely provided no edit summaries in the page history. I've undone edits by that user. -- ADNghiem501 (talk) 16:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Two or more?

The article opens "A rechargeable battery, also known as a storage battery, is a group of two or more secondary cells," but what's to stop a rechargeable battery from consisting of just one secondary cell? I thought common AA NiCd batteries (and other sizes, too) were single-cell batteries. Could someone either tell me I'm right (preferably with a source) or add explanation to the article detailing why you can't have a battery made from just one secondary cell? Thanks.