Battery Education

Lithium Cell Manufacturing Part 5

We are coming to the end of our article series on the manufacturing of lithium battery cells. In the first few articles we introduced the battery cell and looked at it a macro level, the lithium metal and saw how it was formed, we looked at the cathode and its material composition, and now we are going to look at the battery’s electrolyte.

Every battery has an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte solution. There are mnay variations of an electrolyte solution. One common solution is sulfuric acid. Another common solution that is in use today is a Lithium hexaflourophosphate (LiPF₆) in a mixture of organic solvents including: [Ethylene Carbonate (EC) + DiEthyl Carbonate (DMC) + DiEthyl Carbonate (DEC) + Ethyl Acetate (EA). This electrolyte solution like others is used to facilitate the transport of ions between the anode and the cathode. In fact that is the purpose of the electrolyte in a battery is to conduct or transport ions from the negative and positive terminals.

One other newly developed electrolyte solution is a high-purity lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), a conductive salt that was developed by Honeywell International. In fact this electrolyte research and development was paid for through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Honeywell a $27.3 million grant that is designed to accelerate the market introduction and penetration of advanced electric drive vehicles, reducing fuel consumption and vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases. This electrolyte is one of the primary components that is intended to be used in these upcoming electric cars.

Until next time, Dan Hagopian www.batteryship.com

Lithium Cell Manufacturing Part 4

We are currently in the middle of a series on the manufacturing of lithium battery cells. We have looked at the battery cell on a macro level and then at the lithium ingot. Now we are looking at the cathode.

In every battery there must be present a cathode. The cathode is an electrode (electrical conductor) by which electrical current flows out of a polarized electrical device. A cathode can be either positively charged or negatively charged depending on the device type and operating mode.

There are various material compositions that cathodes can be made of including the common metallic oxide cathode. Metal oxides are crystalline solids that contain a metal cation (an ion with more protons than electrons) and an oxide anion (an ion with more electrons than protons).  But other cathode compositions do exist and all have their positive benefits and negative side effects.

Some other cathode material compositions include: LiCoO₂  , LiMn₂O₄  ,LiNiO₂ , Li₂FePO₄F. There are others but all variations include oxygen.

In the next article we will look at the battery's electrolyte.

Until next time, Dan Hagiopian www.batteryship.com

Lithium Cell Manufacturing Part 3

We are currently in the middle of a series on the manufacturing of lithium battery cells. In the first 2 articles we introduced the battery cell and looked at it a macro level. We looked at what processes are used to make a cell, how a battery is hermetically sealed, and the four main components of a cell (lithium, the metallic oxide cathode, the electrolyte, the metallic current collector. Now we want to look at the processes of battery cell manufacturing more closely by breaking down how the four main components of a cell come together.

Lithium Ingots

Battery cell manufacturing processes begins with a lithium ingot. A lithium ingot is often times a cylindrical roll of lithium that weighs about 11 pounds on average. Special order ingots of course can be requested thereby changing the average weight.

Lithium ingots come from technical grade lithium carbonate which is a byproduct of lithium and a solution of lithium hydroxide. The conversion of lithium in the lithium hydroxide solution results in lithium carbonate as a fine white powder. This powder is placed into a billet container prior to being processed through the extrusion. The extruded billet may be solid or hollow in form, commonly cylindrical, used as the final length of material charged into the extrusion press cylinder. It is usually a cast product, but may be a wrought product or sintered from powder compact. This billet of lithium carbonate is the ingot.

As mentioned above the extrusion press – used to shape lithium by forcing it to flow through a shaped opening. The extruded lithium emerges as an elongated piece with the same profile as the opening. The shape is typically a thin piece of metal that stretches over 650 feet. Once the ingot is made the ingot is transformed by the extrusion press and accompanied roller system into a thin sheet of metal that is only 1/100th of an inch thick and 650 feet in length.  A laminator furthers the process by stretching the 655 foot lithium roll to about 1.25 miles of lithium used to make 210 lithium batteries. The battery cell is then tested to measure 3.6V. Volts - or V - are an electrical measure of energy potential. You can think of it as the pressure being exerted by all the electrons of a battery’s negative terminal as they try to move to the positive terminal.

A punch machine is then used to cut the thin metal into the physical cell size requirements and a purification machine remove dirt and other unwanted particles.

In the next part of the series we will look at the metallic oxide cathode.

Until next time, Dan Hagopian - www.batteryship.com
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Lithium Cell Manufacturing Part 2

In this current series on lithium cell manufacturing we are going to be looking at the processes that are used to construct a lithium battery cell. These processes are highly technical and require complete precision in order to make an individual battery cell function according to the specific power demands of the device that the cell will ultimately be used within.

On a macro level when we look at a battery we see completed unit (which we call a battery) however the battery is actually an assembled collection of material and hardware. The outside plastic cover is called the casing. The casing encloses and hermetically seals the battery cell and specialized hardware. Battery casing is manufactured in layers. The casing layers are developed from various raw materials and can include one or two, for example, of polyethylene terephthalate layers, a polymer layer, and a polypropylene layer. Another example may be a casing with layers of carbonized plastic.

Within the casing is the hardware and the battery cell. When we look inside a lithium based battery cell, for example, there are four main components and they include:

• The lithium (which acts as an anode)
• The metallic oxide cathode
• The electrolyte
• The metallic current collector

Lithium

As noted above lithium within the battery cell is used as the battery’s anode. The anode is the part of the cell that acts an electrical conductor (electrode) through which electrical current flows into a polarized device. As current flows into the lithium, a chemical process called intercalation occurs. Intercalation is the joining of a molecule (or molecule group) between two other molecules (or groups). When it comes to charging your battery you are in effect pushing ions in and out of solid lithium compounds. These compounds have minuscule spaces between the crystallized planes for small ions, such as lithium, to insert themselves from a force of current. In effect ionizing the lithium loads the crystal planes to the point where they are forced into a current flow. The current flow is then channeled back and forth from anode to cathode and thereby creating an electrical flow to power on your device.

To create an electrical flow from lithium you have to move the lithium. To move the lithium chemistry (lithium-ion, lithium polymer, lithium iron phosphate, etc) you have to have a minimum voltage applied to the lithium. Most battery cells are charged up to 4.2 volts with relative safe workings at about 3.8 volts. Anything less than 3.3 volts will not be enough to charge or move the chemistry. One thing to note here is that volts are an algorithmic measurement of current. So in a sense to create current through your battery you have to introduce current into your battery’s lithium.

The Metallic Oxide Cathode

The cathode is an electrode (electrical conductor) by which electrical current flows out of a polarized electrical device. The metallic oxide component of the cathode is the composition of the cathode.  Metal oxides are crystalline solids that contain a metal cation (an ion with more protons than electrons)and an oxide anion (an ion with more electrons than protons).

The Electrolyte

In the battery cell the electrolyte solution is the conducting medium in which the flow of electric current passes through between the electrodes. Electrolytes can be wet, solid, gel, or dry. Dry polymer design offers simplifications with respect to fabrication, ruggedness, safety and thin-profile geometry. Dry polymers do not conduct electricity but allows for ion exchange.  The real benefit is the fact that the dry polymer design is only one millimeter (0.039 inches) thick. The drawback is that the dry polymer design suffers from poor conductivity. Today lithium hexafluorophosphate and tetrafluoroborate are the preferred electrolyte salts for lithium batteries.

The Metallic Current Collector

A current collector is an inert structure of high electrical conductivity used to conduct/transmit current from or to an electrode during discharge or charge. There a variety of metal based current collector from zinc to liquid metal that can provide a good conductive path between the electrodes.

Closing

From the above we can see that a battery cell, being just one component of a battery is a highly complex system.  As we move into the next portion of the series we will break down each of these 4 key components of  a battery cell and see how they are actually made.

Until next time, Dan Hagopian - www.batteryship.com
Copyright © BatteryEducation.com. All rights reserved.

Lithium Cell Manufacturing Part 1

Smart Battery packs have very specialized hardware that make possible a battery to provide just the right power at just the right moment. This hardware includes the connector, the fuse, the charge and discharge FETs,  the cell pack, the sense resistor (RSENSE), the primary and secondary protection ICs,  the fuel-gauge IC, the thermistor,  the pc board, and the EEPROM or firmware for the fuel-gauge IC. One of the most critical component in this list is the cell pack.  The battery cell pack can be thought of as the holding area of the battery’s chemical. The battery cell pack is critical to the overall capability of the smart battery. Cell packs have to be designed and integrated based upon the vitals of the battery including chemistry type (Li-ion, Li-po, NICD, NIMH, etc.) cycle life, storage-capacity loss, shelf life, impedance, capacity at different rates of discharge and temperature, and mechanical and environmental requirements. It is critical to say the least. But how do you make a battery cell pack? What are the manufacturing processes necessary to make lithium based cell?

Lithium cell manufacturing was first developed in Japan using heavy machinery and automated equipment to perform certain steps while using robots to transfer partially assembled materials from one step to another. Chinese companies developed a manual approach to take advantage of inexpensive labor.  This is not to say that it is 100% manual on the contrary it more correct to say that it is a semi-automatic production process of Li-ion cells using automated equipment in the most critical areas such as mixing of powder, coating and winding.

In this series we are going to look at the critical processes involved in the manufacture of lithium-ion cells. What critical components are required for a lithium battery and how each component is made.

Until next time, Dan Hagopian - www.batteryship.com
Copyright © BatteryEducation.com. All rights reserved.

 

What is the Total Equivalent Lithium Content of My Battery?

If you ever were curious to know just how much of the chemical, lithium, was packed into your battery then there is a way you can calcualte it. First you need to determine the amount of equivalent lithium content (ELC for short) for one one of your battery's cells as well as the total number of cells in your battery. The equivalent lithium content  (expressed in grams) equals the capacity of the battery (in ampere-hours) times 0.3 times the number of cells in the battery.
 
Let's look at an example, say the HP Compaq 367759-001, we know that this battery has the following technical specifications: 10.8V, 8800 mAh, Li-ion.

So now let's determine the equivalent lithium content for one of the cells in this battery. As stated above the rated capacity is 8800 mAh. The mAh is the milliamps and so if we convert that to Ah or amp hours in order to do our calculation you get 8.8 Ah (8800 mAh is the same as 8.8 Ah). So now we can calculate 8.8 X 0.3 to get 2.64 grams of equivalent lithium content in one cell in the HP Compaq 367759-001 battery.

Secondly, we need to determine the number of cells in the HP Compaq 367759-001 battery. To determine the number of cells in the 367759-001 we need to divide the battery's stated voltage (known to be 10.8V) by the cell's nominal voltage to get the number of cells in series; and divide the battery's stated capacity (known to be 8800) by the cells's nominal capacity to get the number of cells in parallel. Then we need to multiply the results of the series and the parallel to get the total number of cells in the battery. The most common cell used in the 367759-001 is the 18650. The 18650 has a nominal voltage average of 3.6 V and a nominal capacity of 2200 mAh. Therefore as we apply the math we find that the number of cells in the 367759-001 is: (10.8V/3.6V) X (8800 mAh/2200 mAh)= 12 cells.

Finally we can complete our effort in knowing the total equivalent lithium content in the 367759-001 by performing the following...We know based on our calculation above there is 2.64 grams of equivalent lithium content in one cell. We also know that there are 12 cells in the 367759-001 so now we can multiply the equivalent lithium content in one cell by the total number of cells to get: 2.64g X 12= 31.68 grams of equivalent lithium content.

To determine the amount of equivalent lithium content in your battery follow the steps above and just input the technical specifications of your battery.

Until next time, Dan Hagopian - www.batteryship.com
Copyright © BatteryEducation.com. All rights reserved.

What Raw Minerals Are Used To Make a Battery?

To build a battery you have four basic overarching battery components including the casing, chemistry, electrolyte, and the internal specialized hardware. At the core of these four basic overarching battery components are the foundation blocks; the raw materials necessary for the construction of a battery. Minerals and materials used in the construction of batteries are numerous but the core mineral required to have a battery is the batteries chemical which can either be : cadmium, cobalt, lead, lithium, and nickel (along with other rare earth elements).  Why is the chemical one of the most important element in a battery: because a battery at its most basic element is a system that converts and stores electrochemical energy for the purpose of providing portable power to a device. Without the chemistry changing chemical energy into electrical energy is impossible. So needless to say the availability of minerals used in batteries are highly important!

Incidentally the available raw material supply and price often times dictates how much your battery is going to be – if the raw material price is higher, than, your battery cost will be higher (the converse of that is also true). But what are the current supplies of the battery making minerals and how much demand is out there for these minerals?

In the United States there are currently 6,841 different mining operations ranging from aluminum to zircon.  Although 6,841 mines sounds like a lot of mining operations you must evaluate that number against the total demand of minerals. Consider that every American born in 2007 is estimated to use the following amounts of nonfuel mineral commodities over their lifetime (data pulled from MII):

• Aluminum (bauxite) 5,677 pounds
• Cement 65,480 pounds
• Clays 19,245 pounds
• Copper 1,309 pounds 
• Gold 1,576 ounces
• Iron ore  29,608 pounds
• Lead 928 pounds
• Phosphate rock  19,815 pounds 
• Stone, sand, and gravel  1.61 million pounds 
• Zinc 671 pounds 

Now consider that there were 4,315,000 babies born in 2007 (U.S. Census Bureau). So when you start multiplying the amounts of estimated use of each of the minerals you can quickly see 6,841 mines is not really a whole lot!

Lithium, Cadmium, Cobalt, Nickel By The Numbers

Chile was the leading lithium chemical producer in the world with Argentina, China, and the United States as additional major producers.  The United States remained the leading consumer of lithium minerals and compounds and the leading producer of value-added lithium materials. Incidentally only one company produced lithium compounds in the U.S. and that is at the Silver Peak Mine in Nevada run by the Chemetall Foote Corporation.  Lithium is used not only in batteries but also in ceramics and glass, lubricating greases, pharmaceuticals and polymers, air conditioning, primary aluminum production, continuous casting, chemical processing and other uses. In terms of annual quantity of lithium the USGS estimates that in the U.S in 2005 5,000,000 pounds of lithium was used in rechargeable batteries.

In terms of annual quantity of cadmium the USGS estimates that in the U.S in 2005 1,312,000 pounds of cadmium was used in rechargeable batteries.

In terms of annual quantity of cobalt (cobalt is used primarily for the battery’s electrodes) the USGS estimates that in the U.S in 2005 23,800,000 pounds of cobalt was used in rechargeable batteries.

In terms of annual quantity of nickel the USGS estimates that in the U.S in 2005 426,000,000 pounds of nickel was used in rechargeable batteries.

How Much Demand is there for these Minerals?

In 2002 it is estimated that 350 million batteries were purchased in the U.S. So if you assume that the past 7 years have been fairly consistent then you could assume that 2.4 Billion batteries were bought and in use and will eventually need to be recycled and replaced. This means that an ever increasing demand for minerals will be placed on the mines of the earth.

Thankfully there is enough available minerals and metals to be extracted from mines that at least for the time being we do not have to be overly concerned, but, indeed there will come a point decades down the road, that this will not always be true.

Until next time, Dan Hagopian - www.batteryship.com
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How Do Generic Aftermarket Batteries Compare with Name Brand Batteries?

Do aftermarket batteries have the same capability and longevity as their branded counterparts? In a simple word – yes – but what aftermarket batteries bring to customers (in addition to long life performance and similar technical ratings and components) is affordability.

Big brand companies get big in terms of sales and number of units sold for four reasons – product availability and reliability, marketing and advertising on a mass scale, and the ability to fulfill their product to customers. Overtime these four components will turn any company into a Big Brand – but at a price. There is a direct association between the price of product and the company’s cost. The lower the costs the lower the price – the higher the costs the higher the price you will have to pay.

As a customer of batteries what is mission critical is that your device (whether it is a laptop, PDA, two-way radio, power tool, or flashlight) works on battery power. Your device does not care whether you have a big brand battery name on it or a generic aftermarket battery!

What is important to your device is that your voltage, capacity, chemistry, and all the internal and external components meet the specific design needs of your device. For example take Apple's EC003 (the iPod Mini). The iPod Mini requires the following technical requirements:

• The exact physical dimensions for the battery compartment
• Lithium Ion Chemistry
• 3.7 volts
• a minimum of 400 mAh
• the necessary hardware (connector, fuse, charge and discharge FETs, cell pack, sense resistor, primary and secondary protection ICs, fuel-gauge IC, thermistor, pc board, and the EEPROM or firmware for the fuel-gauge IC)

Now outside of the above technical requirements the iPod Mini does not care if the battery comes from Apple or any other third party just as long as it is “100% OEM Compatible and Guaranteed to meet or exceed OEM specifications”.

So if aftermarket replacement batteries are “100% OEM Compatible and Guaranteed to meet or exceed OEM specifications” AND if aftermarket batteries are considerably lower in price why do people opt to buy OEM or branded batteries? Because consumers have been conditioned to buy the big brands because of the clever marketing and advertising that marketers pour over and over consumers.

Now I’m sure one may come with the argument that aftermarket batteries have a higher failure rate then branded batteries – but I can tell you that having been a direct part of the aftermarket and BIG brand market for 13 years (with various companies) – every manufacture and company has defects. It is a part of manufacturing regardless of the manufacturer’s name. Acceptable defect rates float between 1-2% of all units shipped. In manufacturing there is no such thing as 0% defect rate. That is why you have a product warranty with parts (money back periods and extended warranty periods).

So now since the aftermarket or NON-OEM batteries have a low defect rate, low product cost, and the exact same specs as the OEMs the only thing that would stop you from buying aftermarket batteries is your marketing condition and the size of your wallet!

Until next time, Dan Hagopian - www.batteryship.com
Copyright © BatteryEducation.com. All rights reserved.

How Long Will My Battery Last?

Most rechargeable batteries have a charge-discharge cycle that ranges between 300-500 cycles (for lithium based chemistries - NIMH can have up to 800 charge-discharge cycles and NICD chemistries can have up to 1200). A charge-discharge cycle means that a battery once at 100% draws power down to 0%. Then after recharge it will be back at 100%. This can be done 300-500 times on the same lithium based battery. Now most battery users recharge their batteries before the battery reaches 0%, this is perfectly acceptable, but still the same principles of the charge-discharge cycle limitations are in effect.

One common mistake is to assume that a battery that has a 1 year warranty will last for 365 days and when it does not last 1 year the assumption is is that the battery must be bad. This is a fallacy and an erroneous belief - in essence incorrect!

Here is why!

As I have written in other articles a battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. Batteries have two electrodes, an anode (the negative end) and a cathode (the positive end). Collectively the anode and the cathode are called the electrodes. In between the battery’s two electrodes runs an electrical current caused primarily from a voltage differential between the anode and cathode. The voltage runs through a chemical called an electrolyte (which can be either be in a liquid, solid, or gel state). This battery consisting of two electrodes is called a voltaic cell. Most batteries today are advance forms of the voltaic cells and have additional technology packed into the battery casing to support the overall system and its connected  device. These controls include the connector, fuse, charge and discharge FETs, the cell pack, the sense resistor (RSENSE), the primary and secondary protection ICs, the fuel-gauge IC thermistor, pc board, and the EEPROM or firmware for the fuel-gauge IC.

How Does a Battery Work and What Does It Produce?

We know that the result of a battery converting chemical energy into electrical energy allows us to turn on our laptop, PDA, MP3 or even a cell-phone. But how does the conversion process take place? As stated above the batteries we use today are variable changes of the voltaic pile. In addition to the controls I listed above today’s batteries are made up of plates of reactive chemicals (Li-ion, Li-po, NIMH, NICD) separated by an electrolyte barrier (which can be either be in a liquid, solid, or gel state), and subsequently polarized so all the electrons gather on one side. The system was designed to separate both positive and negative electrons. Then after separation an electron exchange occurs and a current of electron flow moves electrons to and from the anode and cathode. Simultaneously an electrochemical reaction takes place inside the battery to replenish the electrons. The effect is a chemical process that creates electrochemical energy.

Now the electrochemical reaction that is taking place is a chemical change that is necessary in order to create electricity. One factor that needs to be understood is that electricity is the flow of electrons. Specifically, electricity is a property of subatomic particles which couples to electromagnetic fields and causes attractive and repulsive forces between them. This repulsive force between the subatomic particles creates an electric current; the flow of electric charge transports energy from one atom to another. This electrical current is measured in amperes, where 1 ampere is the flow of 62,000,000,000,000,000,000 electrons per second!

Electricity therefore is a created energy source. All electricity in fact is a created source made or converted from coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear power, wind, heat, sun, water, biomass and or other chemicals. In batteries today electricity is created by two chemicals in a solution for example: {a Solution of Lithium hexaflourophosphate (LiPF6) - a mixture of Organic Solvents: [Ethylene Carbonate (EC) + DiEthyl Carbonate (DMC) + DiEthyl Carbonate (DEC) + Ethyl Acetate (EA)]}

To create electricity within a battery first and foremost the battery's chemistry must be charged. Charging lithium can be thought of as the introduction of ions or movement of chemistry. To move the lithium chemistry (lithium-ion, lithium polymer, lithium iron phosphate, etc) you have to have a minimum voltage applied to the lithium. Most battery cells are charged to 4.2 volts with relative safe workings at about 3.8 volts. Anything less than 3.3 volts will not be enough to charge or move the chemistry. One thing to note here is that volts are an algorithmic measurement of current. So in a sense to create current through your battery you have to introduce current into your battery’s lithium .

Introducing current into your lithium is called intercalation. Intercalation is the joining of a molecule (or molecule group) between two other molecules (or groups). When it comes to charging your battery you are in effect pushing ions in and out of solid lithium compounds. These compounds have minuscule spaces between the crystallized planes for small ions, such as lithium, to insert themselves from a force of current. In effect ionizing the lithium loads the crystal planes to the point where they are forced into a current flow. The current flow is then channeled back and forth from anode to cathode and thereby creating an electrical flow to power on your device. Again this can done 300-500 times before all the ions are pushed out of the lithium and you will no longer be able to charge your device.

One final thought and that is runtime (time between charges). After each charge-discharge cycle the runtime (time between charges) is reduced by intercalation as discussed above. For example you may notice in the first 3-4 months you are getting between 3-5 hours of runtime on your battery. Then in months 5-12 (after your purchase) you notice that you are slowly getting less and less runtime in between charges until you might be getting less than 5 minutes of runtime. This is the normal use of the chemistry inside your battery and DOES NOT mean that the battery is bad, but simply has been used by you.

Until next time - Dan Hagopian, www.BatteryShip.com
Copyright © BatteryEducation.com. All rights reserved.

How Green Are Batteries?

When you peer into the world of batteries your first thought is “wow - there sure are a lot of batteries”. While this is certainly true as self directed environmentalist I wonder just how many batteries can actually be recycled. To answer the question let’s look at batteries from the manufacturing floor on up to the end user.

The battery business just as in any business requires that materials are bought, assembled into products, and eventually sold to an end user. Batteries however have an interesting collection of materials, which are designed to collect energy, store energy, and redistribute energy on demand. These processes on the surface seem very environmentally friendly but let’s see just how friendly!

As alluded to above building a battery requires basic components including: the casing, the chemistry, the electrolyte, and the battery’s specialized hardware

The Battery Casing

The purpose of a battery casing is for enclosing and hermetically sealing an internal battery body. Battery casings are manufactured in layers. The casing layers are developed from various raw materials and can include one or two polyethylene terephthalate layers (a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family), a polymer layer, and a polypropylene layer (another thermoplastic polymer). The entire casing can be recycled.

The Battery Chemistry

As noted above a battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. To convert chemical energy into electrical energy the battery must contain the chemical base to allow conversion to occur. Types of common chemicals used in batteries on the market today are:

• Lithium Ion (Li-ion)
• Lithium Polymer (Li-po)
• Lithium-thionyl chloride (Li-SOCl₂)
• Lithium-sulfur dioxide (Li-SO₂)
• Lithium-manganese dioxide (Li-MnO₂)
• Nickel-cadmium (NICD)
• Nickel-metal-hydride (NIMH)
• Lead-acid batteries
• Reusable Alkaline

Each of these chemistries can be recycled.

The Battery’s Electrolyte

The actual conversion of chemical energy into electrochemical energy can only be done if an electron flow passes between two electrodes, an anode (the negative end) and a cathode (the positive end). The battery’s electrical current (electron flow) runs from one electrode to another through a conductive chemical called an electrolyte solution.

A basic electrolyte solution is a chemical compound (salt, acid, or base) that when dissolved in a solvent forms a solution that becomes an ionic conductor of electricity. In the battery cell the electrolyte solution is the conducting medium in which the flow of electric current between the electrodes takes place by the migrating electrons.

At the end of the battery’s electrolyte solution’s life, the spent battery acid can be neutralized using an industrial grade baking soda compound. After neutralization the acid turns into water, treated, cleaned to meet clean water standards, and then released into the public sewer system. Another option would be to convert spent battery acid into sodium sulfate, which is used in laundry detergent, glass and textile manufacturing.

The Battery’s Specialized Hardware

A battery consists of more than the casing, electrolyte, and the chemical. It requires some very specialized hardware, especially when we speak directly about a smart battery. Your typical smart battery may have a multitude of hardware components that when working in tandem not merely create electrical power and transfer it to a particular device but additionally sends data packets of information to the device so that the device can actually gauge the battery (at least in theory). Some of the common hardware features in a smart battery include: the connector, the fuse, the charge and discharge FETs, the cell pack, the sense resistor (RSENSE), the primary and secondary protection ICs, the fuel-gauge IC, the thermistor, the pc board, and the EEPROM or firmware for the fuel-gauge IC. The materials that comprise these individual components can be broken down and recycled.

So How Green Are Batteries?

Batteries are very environmentally safe, especially batteries that are rechargeable.

Until next time - Dan Hagopian, www.BatteryShip.com
Copyright © BatteryEducation.com. All rights reserved.