With the advent and advance of technology, the necessity for rechargeable batteries cannot be over-emphasized as it is a tool for rendering of efficient professional services or for personal use. A world without them couldn't be possible (.…. Well, let's not imagine it). Need I remind us that our phones, laptops, portable TVs, hair trimmers, among others, all use rechargeable batteries.
A rechargeable battery, storage battery,
secondary cell, or accumulator is a type of
electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, while a non-rechargeable or primary battery is supplied fully charged, and discarded once discharged.
Devices which use rechargeable batteries include automobile starters , portable consumer devices, light vehicles (such as motorized wheelchairs, golf carts, electric bicycles, and electric forklifts ), tools, uninterruptible power supplies , and battery storage power stations. Emerging applications in hybrid internal combustion-battery and electric vehicles drive the technology to reduce cost, weight, and size, and increase lifetime.
Types of batteries
The lead acid battery- It is the oldest type of rechargeable battery. Despite having a very low energy-to-weight ratio and a low energy-to-volume ratio, its ability to supply high surge currents means that the cells have a relatively large power-to-weight ratio.
The nickel cadmium battery- It uses nickel oxide hydroxide and metallic
cadmium as electrodes. Cadmium is a toxic element, and was banned for most uses by the European Union in 2004.
The nickel metal hydride battery- It is now a common consumer and industrial type. The battery has a hydrogen-absorbing alloy for the negative electrode instead of cadmium.
The lithium-ion battery- It is the choice in most consumer electronics and has the best energy density and a very slow loss of charge when not in use (it is not subject to the 'memory effect', which means that the battery will not lose capacity if it isn't completely discharged when used). Most people do not let their batteries run completely dry before charging them, and when this happens many batteries will remember this shorter charge cycle. As a result, the capacity of the battery is reduced, which can be aggravating and frustration as a consumer. However, this isn't an issue with lithium -ion batteries.
The lithium-ion polymer battery- It is the most advanced batteries available on the market. The battery is cased in plastic, rather than metal, making it sleeker, lighter, smaller, safer than other types of battery and can be constructed to any shape. Like the lithium -ion batteries, this do not suffer from memory effect, and do not diminish when the battery isn't completely drained between charges. In addition, they can contain up to 40 per cent more charge capacity than other batteries, namely NiMH batteries (nickel metal hydride, nickel cadmium, lead acid).
New Lithium Technology- The newest evolution in the world of mobile phone battery technology is ready to take things forward. The new lithium micro battery is tagged as being 1,000 times more powerful than its lithium predecessors, and may only take a single second to charge up. It is still in an early phase of development, but will help battery technology catch up with the speed of evolution that mobile phones have gone through.
Mobile phones are key to us and cannot operate without battery. Make sure you check the battery technology before buying any phone.
Our phones are important, but the batteries are more important.
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