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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2002  > July  >
In the Laboratory
Why Do Some Batteries Last Longer Than Others?
Michael J. Smith
Departamento de Química, Universidade do Minho, Largo do Paço, 4700-320 Braga, Portugal

Colin A. Vincent
School of Chemistry, University of St. Andrews, Fife, KY 16 9ST, Scotland

Cover
July 2002
Vol. 79 No. 7
p. 851
Abstract
The criteria used by manufacturers to determine the market price of a commercial product are often only indirectly related to what the consumer recognizes as important. This is certainly true of the battery industry; the most expensive battery or cell does not always provide the best service. Even when the electrochemical basis for energy conversion is apparently the same, cells produced by different manufacturers often provide markedly different quantities of energy. In this experiment samples of cathode composite are removed from commercial cells and their electrochemical performance is compared using a test cell and identical discharge conditions. The results confirm that the cell with the most energy does not always have the highest price and suggest that some cell manufacturers may attribute a higher priority to other aspects of performance (power, shelf-life or resistance to abuse, for example), which increase the price without improving the quantity of deliverable energy. The objective of the experiment described in this paper is to provide information that gives the chemically aware consumer a frame of reference for future choice of cells and contributes to an improved understanding of the structure and operational basis of primary cells based on the Leclanché system.
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*  Citation
 Smith, Michael J.; Vincent, Colin A. J. Chem. Educ. 2002 79 851.
*  Keywords
 Electrochemistry; energy conversion*; Physical Chemistry; primary batteries*
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 June 17, 2002
March 16, 2005
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