Simple Chemical Trick To Boost Battery Efficiency

space_mongoose writes "Hitachi thinks that a simple chemical additive could significantly improve battery life. Alkaline batteries have a positive electrode of manganese oxide and a negative electrode of finely powdered zinc, but zinc oxide forms around these grains of zinc. Hitachi's solution is to replace the zinc with a fine powder of zinc-aluminum alloy, displacing the zinc within the zinc oxide layer making it a much better conductor."

At least this is not

[zappepcs (820751)]

another battery from Sony

Re:

[evwah (954864)]

as a sony employee, I think someone should mod you -1 humornotappreciated

jk:P

Re:At least this is not

[by Anonymous Coward]

As a typical member of /. I think someone should mod you -1 employernotappreciated

Re:

[rf0 (159958)]

Least their batteries can keep you warm on a cold winters night

Re:One small step for Hitachi another big marketin

[SomeoneGotMyNick (200685)]

However the leap in added power will still be less than Lithium batteries

I agree, but the New and Improved batteries might still be much cheaper and less hazardous [wikipedia.org].

Incremental Changes

[anonymous_but_brave (1075911)]

These changes to batteries are really just tweaks. Batteries are still very expensive, and thermodynamically inefficient. Also, they aren't even talking about lithium batteries, which would not benefit from this tweak. I'm still waiting for that breakthrough which will allow me to run my laptop for days (instead of hours) on a battery.

Re:

[markov_chain (202465)]

I've given up on waiting. I'm thinking of building either a big NiMH pack out of D cells (10Ah at least), or just get a big sealed lead-acid. The former is light but expensive, the latter is heavy but dirt cheap. Run times close to a day!

Re:Incremental Changes - OR...

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

I'm still waiting for that breakthrough which will allow me to run my laptop for days (instead of hours) on a battery.

I'd settle for that carbon nano-tube batt-capacitor that would recharge a virtually infinite number of times in seconds, instead of hours.

Re:

[iamacat (583406)]

I'm still waiting for that breakthrough which will allow me to run my laptop for days (instead of hours) on a battery.

The most likely breakthrough is likely to come from the hardware and software of your laptop rather than the battery. With e-paper type display fast enough for interactive use, 386-level CPU/RAM, flash storage and carefully optimized software stack, an existing battery can last anywhere from a week if you are compiling code to many months if you are just reading an e-book. To achieve compara

Powertop

[repvik (96666)]

Useful link for saving power on Intel hardware: http://www.linuxpowertop.org/index.php [linuxpowertop.org]

Re:

[rbanffy (584143)]

The breakthrough will not come from batteries but most probably from improved processors, memory-based storage and better display efficiencies.

If you don't need Windows games, you could go with an open-source OS, which means anything ARM or MIPS-based could be fair game. I can easily imagine a asynchronous multi-core ARM processor that runs Linux fast enough for me as long as it has enough memory to keep Firefox happy. Just doing away with PC compatibility would increase efficiencies (imagine not having a v

Costs?

[bigberk (547360)]

I didn't see any mention of cost in the article. For instance looking at market aluminum prices, I am astounded to see that the price of the raw metal is increasing something like +23% per year. I don't know if relatively speaking the aluminum/zinc oxide is more costly than just zinc, but I think a greater point is... if the raw material costs are increasing at such a rapid pace (over 20% per year!) then just how "cost effective" will these batteries be in the long term?

P.S. the skyrocketing metal costs, including important ones like copper and silver, are part of an ongoing commodity boom and response to out of control inflation in the USA and depreciating US dollar. The rapidly increasing costs of these metals will be reflected in goods we buy, like batteries.

Re:Costs?

[SnowZero (92219)]

...out of control inflation in the USA...

While I agree with most of what you say, I have no idea what makes you think inflation is out of control right now in the US. The average for the last 8 months is a 2.36% yearly rate. The EU has averaged 0.5% better over the same period. Most analysts seem to think that is pretty reasonable.

Re:Costs?

[antifoidulus (807088)]

Well, thats the official rate, which is only as good as the methodology that is used to measure it, which I think is flawed. They measure a "basket" of goods and services plus take surveys on rent. However, this is only meaningful if how you spend your money is representative of the way they measure inflation. For example, in certain catagories of goods we are seeing either 0 inflation or deflation because of the huge influx of goods from China(on things such as plasma tvs) but meanwhile healthcare, energy, housing, education, and even food prices(which are the basics of life) are spiraling out of control. So unless you buy a lot of luxury goods, your personal rate of inflation is probably markedly higher than the one the Fed considers. And in the EU it's even stranger because they try to harmonize prices from different countries meanwhile the inflation picture can be markedly different, esp. on things that aren't tradable across borders such as housing. In addition you have countries like Germany that raised its sales tax 3% this year, and that pretty much automatically creates inflation....

Just my 2 cents.

Re:

[c_forq (924234)]

I don't see food prices spiraling out of control. I can still buy a loaf of bread or a double cheeseburger for $1. Milk always bounces around, but hasn't been that high. Potatoes haven't changed much and bananas are still dirt cheap. Housing prices have been falling in many areas around me (I believe all around the country real estate has shifted to a buyers market). I'll give you healthcare and education, those ones have been a bit out of control, and energy has been bad in some places, but overall I

Re:

[timmarhy (659436)]

housing is out of control here in australia, yet it hasn't been reflected in our offical inflation rates. real world, rent has gone up $200 a week in the space of 2 years in most areas. i don't see many people getting $200 a week more in their pockets. if the US method is anything like ours (which i think it is) the offical inflation rate is nothing better then a guess.

Re:

[battjt (9342)]

If you look at the demand for higher education and medical services, the rise in price can be justified through the increased demand and improvement in the delivered product. Comparing todays education and medical services to those from 20 years ago isn't fair.

Joe

Re:

[mpsheppa (1088477)]

I'm not too sure on the details of the US economy and inflation in the US might well be related to a depreciating US dollar and a depreciating US dollar would have some effect on metal prices. However these effects are very minor compared to metal price rises which are actually a result of increasing demand, mostly notably from a booming Chinese economy, outstripping supply.

On your question of costs, according to lme.co.uk, Aluminium is currently $2,185 per tonne and Zinc is $3,850 per tonne, so I wouldn't

Energizer super ultra-platinum pro?

[SnowZero (92219)]

Heh, yet another way to squeeze a little bit more out of alkaline batteries. I hope most research is going into rechargeable battery tech these days, because those are the batteries I really care about. I only use alkalines in remote controls nowadays.

Re:

[bladesjester (774793)]

My list of use for alkaline batteries is roughly remotes, my mini maglites (I keep one in the house, one in the car, and one in my messenger bag), my ColdHeat soldering iron, and my digital camera.

Like you, pretty much all the rest of my battery powered stuff is rechargable.

Re:

[huckamania (533052)]

Any fire alarms you have should not be using rechargeables. It will usually say so on any new alarms you buy.

Re:

[SnowZero (92219)]

Good point, I had forgotten about fire alarms. I guess for completeness' sake, I should mention that I use a non-rechargeable battery in my watch as well, although it's a lithium and not an alkaline.

Peak current, yes - Extra life, not so much

[mpoulton (689851)]

TFA is no longer than the summary, but based on the concept it appears that this would improve only the peak current capability but not the total capacity (mAh). In fact, if anything, the addition of aluminum which does not participate in the electrolytic reaction would decrease the capacity. Not sure this is a very useful development.

Re:Peak current, yes - Extra life, not so much-THI

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

this would improve only the peak current capability

This alone might make them suitable in digital cameras, who's current requirements presently don't match up well with inexpensive alkaline cells.

Re:Peak current, yes - Extra life, not so much-THI

[zippthorne (748122)]

Would that be their current current requirements?

Re:Peak current, yes - Extra life, not so much-THI

[fyngyrz (762201)]

Would that be their current current requirements?

Currently, yes. They're all amped up, you'll be unable to resist them when they come out. Shocking charges, I know, but few have the capacity to induce or impede such a flow of power, watt?

Re:

[smellsofbikes (890263)]

Wire you so revolting? You could've composed a joule-like response, but you'd rather choke us with terrible puns. Go hohm.

Re:

[Urusai (865560)]

No, the aluminum prevents unwanted reactions that interfere with the battery's longevity, at least that's what I got from the article.

Voltage.

[lindseyp (988332)]

Another advance I'd like to see in Battery Technology, that is for rechargeable batteries to be the same voltage as their alkaline counterparts.

There are many applications where 1.2V just doesn't substitute well for 1.5V.

Re:

[NerveGas (168686)]

I'd rather see *standard* lithium-ion rechargeable battery sizes, so that manufacturers could just quit designing things for alkalines. They wouldn't even have to handle recharging (if they didn't want to), just let the user pop the batteries out and into a charger.

My baby monitor uses AAs, and I *can* put nicads or nimhs in, but they go dead just from self-discharge as fast as they do from use, so I stick to cheap Kirkland alkalines. I keep daydreaming of putting a single litium-ion cell in it, and addin

Re:Voltage.

[inviolet (797804)]

My baby monitor uses AAs, and I *can* put nicads or nimhs in, but they go dead just from self-discharge as fast as they do from use, so I stick to cheap Kirkland alkalines.

The new Sanyo Eneloop [thomasdistributing.com] NiMH batteries don't have that problem.

I recently $wapped out my vast collection of piss-poor Energizer (2500 mAH) AAs for Eneloop (2000 mAH) AAs, and there's no going back!

Re:

[Rolgar (556636)]

I was researching this earlier this week. The Hybrio [peswiki.com] also looks good. I'd like to try the Eneloops with the C and D size adapters, so I can recharge those as well.

As I was reading reviews, I found that several reviewers recommended getting a nice charger. The recommended one to get is the Maha Powerex MH-C401FS. Each of the slots charges independently so you can charge any number instead of 2 or 4 at a time only, supports AA and AAA, or NiMH, it can charge in fast mode (100 minutes) or slow (5-8 hours),

Re:Voltage.

[norton_I (64015)]

Any device which will not run on 1.2 V is poorly designed. Alkaline batteries drop in voltage nearly linearly over their lifetime from 1.5 V to about 1.0 V. Devices can and should run over this full range of voltages. NiMH batteries, by comparison, stay roughly 1.2 V for most of their charge cycle. There is simply no excuse for designing something that does not work for half the life of an Alkaline battery.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you know a lot about electronics design to be making such a judgment.

Yep, I worked for 4.5 years in an electrical engineering firm, designing the electronics for hand-held consumer products, with a particular focus on the supply side.

In particular, consumer products that can't deal with 1.2v cells simply have a supply-side electronic design that is 30+ years old. A lot of old designs get reused over and over again, as their patents have expired and the designers find it easy to replay the same theme over and over again.

Although it generally costs no money to design and bui

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Another advance I'd like to see in Battery Technology, that is for rechargeable batteries to be the same voltage as their alkaline counterparts.

There are many applications where 1.2V just doesn't substitute well for 1.5V.

Battery voltage is determined by its chemistry.. So unfortunately not possible!

Re:

[zippthorne (748122)]

It's also not any better than just letting them sit overnight. They "recover" a fraction of their original capacity whether or not you run a current through them. (or rather, most applications depress the voltage long before depleting the actual capacity, then the voltage recovers between uses.)

In your experiment, don't forget about the "control" batteries.

why

[wizardforce (1005805)]

TFA talks about a zing aluminum alloy with the aluminum acting as a sacrificial electrode to prevent an oxide layer from forming on the zinc but aluminum forms a very hard oxide layer too so how exactly does it solve anything if it's an alloy? it will just form the oxide layer anyway and impede current flow. now if it were a seperate electrode you would have a problem where the current mainly originates from the aluminum electrode not the zinc so in that case why have the zinc there? for that matter why are we still using these alkaline battery formulas? they end up with this problem when an acidic formula probably wouldnt from the oxide layer in the first place.

Re:

[richard.cs (1062366)]

It will just form the oxide layer anyway and impede current flow.

Aluminium oxide dissolves in sufficiently strong alkali (it's the method used to prepare aluminium parts for anodizing). I don't know if the electrolyte in the battery is sufficient to do this but that might be the explaination.

May I be the first to say

[CrazyJim1 (809850)]

I'm glad we live in a world with zinc.

Re:

[rf0 (159958)]

Youtube linkage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxXt1AdSamA [youtube.com]

Re:

[wildsurf (535389)]

And here's the spoof that that spoof spoofed:

Kentucky Fried Movie - Zinc Oxide [youtube.com]

With all these advancements...

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

With all these advancements in batteries of late, my next battery might be my last battery -- in 5 years!

Re:With all these Amazing advancements...

[Boogaroo (604901)]

Don't be silly. By then it'll be a different shape for your new laptop and you'll need a whole new battery that's TRULY different and revolutionary.

Wow...

[poor_boi (548340)]

I'm glad Hitachi decided to run this by me first, before bringing these extended-life batteries to market. Just schlepping longer-lasting batteries on the market like that could be a bad idea. I mean, some people really like it when their devices die on them mid-week.

Who want to use non-rechargeable batteries anymore

[daem0n1x (748565)]

I only use rechargeable batteries. They can be recharged 1000 times before they die, so they are extremely cheaper than the traditional ones.

Also, the ability to use the same battery for years and years makes it a lot more environmentally friendly. Just imagine, for a particular gadget you have, how many times you have thrown batteries away. The environmental cost per Wh is a complete nonsense.

EV Bunny w/ 12ft. afterburner flame! Oh!No!

[rts008 (812749)]

So, then what you're saying is these burn longer than the Dell/Sony Laptop batteries?
Can I order some in time for July 4th?

Re:

[qbwiz (87077)]

If it's so obvious, why didn't you invent it and bring it to market, already?

Re:Cost-efficiency?

[evanbd (210358)]

And battery companies don't do it because they want your batteries to run out faster, so you'll buy more...

Do you have *any* evidence for this?

I'd say the opposite is true. Battery companies *do* come out with new, higher performance models, and they provide good data about how well they perform. For example, Energizer has their e2 line of batteries, which have a longer life under some discharge conditions -- and those conditions are thoroughly documented in the data sheet.

See also continued improvements in lithium ion rechargeable technology -- in the past few years both power and energy densities have improved dramatically.

I suggest you do some research into the current state of the art before claiming the battery companies just sit on technology so you'll buy more batteries.

Re:

[Torvaun (1040898)]

Did you happen to see that article a while back, that stated that close to 50% of the time, people could not pick up on the tone of emails? Something about nonverbal cues not being present. Now, do you happen to realize where you are? This is Slashdot, where there is a greater than average subset of wackos and nutjobs, especially on the Anonymous Coward front.

Maybe you picked up on tone that the GP missed. At 50-50 odds, that's not absurd enough for you to start flinging insults at his reading comprehen

Re:

[Calinous (985536)]

I don't know who modded you troll, but I think you are right:
  introducing this new technique is costly not only in increased component price, but in retooling too. There might be long-term contracts with suppliers of zinc, and changing them will take some time.
      In the end, better batteries are always good, but the change might take some time