Energizer Lithium AAA - Expiration date 2021 !!!

I picked up a couple of 4-packs of Energizer Lithium AAAs yesterday at a local Wal-Mart. When I got them home I noticed that the expiration date on the package was 2021. That's almost 15 years. I'm amazed... All the other info I've heard on Lithiums reports a 10-year shelf life.

Anybody heard anything about this???

How is it that Energizer can claim a 15 year shelf life on their AA and AAA Lithium batteries, while their Cr123A's have only 10? And all other Cr123A have 10 years for that matter. What is so special about Energizer AA and AAA's that enable them to maintain stable seals that long? Or is this more of Energizer sales hype? I really want an explantion!

Energizer probably moves more AA and AAA sized lithium batteries than CR123's, so the CR123's and the CR123 packaging you see out now are probably older. Also there's probably more of a push to develop AA & AAA technology. I'd say we'll probably see CR123's stamped with 15 year expirations soon.

bunnies it has to do with the bunnies and magic. Lots of bunny magic lead buy the energizer bunny.

Cydonia said:

How is it that Energizer can claim a 15 year shelf life on their AA and AAA Lithium batteries, while their Cr123A's have only 10?...

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Could it be due to differences in the resistance of the insulation used in the batteries? (I mean effective parallel resistance from positive to negative terminals.)

Could it also be due to Energizer using a different packaging process with more reliability and ruggedness in their AAA and AA Lithium formulations? Since they were after all bringing to mass market a new Lithium battery in the most common sizes consumer buy! So that Joe Six pack has less chance of having any incidents with them they made sure it was well built and sealed? And that the upside of this extra packaging ruggedness is longer seal integrity, which was demonstrated in their extensive tests, and allowed a 15 year shelf life claim? And that since the volume of CR123A's sold are small by comparison, they will not extend this new improvement to CR123's?

Is this line of reasoning logical? Somone here has to know the exact technical rational behind Energizer being able to stamp expiry dates 15 years into the future on these batteries VS only 10 for their Cr123A's. I think this is a fascinating little mystery, and it is astonishing to find it unexplained... (I've searched and found no answers yet)

Why would you expect different batteries with obviously different lithium chemistries (one is 3v, one is 1.7v) to have the same expiration dates?

So it is to do with the AA and AAA's being Iron Disulphide and CR123A's being Manganise Dioxide? Guess the former chemistry is more stable longterm. Thanks bfg9000.

That's my guess, but we actually don't know how their 123s are rated because that information isn't in their datasheet. The L91 datasheet notes those are actually 15 years to 90%! Their E91 alkaline is rated differently (less conservatively) at 7 years to 80%, so if the 123 turns out to be ~10 years to 95% it may be the same after all.

And let's not forget that not all 123A cells are rated for a 10 year shelf life. Some *cough*Titanium*cough* are only guaranteed for 90 days from the invoice date.

About 2 years ago I questioned someone in technical at Energizer about shelf life of their cells. My initial inquiry was regarding alkalines and I received a very nice personal reply with the stats. I don't remember what they were now, but the alkalines were a 7 year shelf instead of the previous 5 years and they gave a breakdown of percentage of life at different intervals of their shelf life. I want to say that the final number was 75% at 7 years.

This was during the time that the lithium AAs changed from 10 to 15 years. I wrote back specifically questioning about the change in the lithiuim AA shelf life and received an answer to the effect that developments in their technology allowed the increased shelf life and that any additional information was propriertary.