Amazing AA battery, the future ?

[BlackhawkB]

I just found it in a magazine

http://s11.postimage.org/nsbc3noub/P1010225_2.jpg

Need !!!


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[czAtlantis]

Nice gadget but it is not much useful....what I read they have very poor performance - low capacity, high internal resistance. The only interesting thing is you can store them for extreme long periods of time...so I can imagine them in emergency kit in nuclear bomb shelter where they can be forgotten for 50 years and after that time still useful....for other applications Lithium primaries are waaaay better.

 

[n3eg]

If they run on water, juice, beer, and spit - will they run on...um, how do I put this...yellow snow?

 

[Mooreshire]

600mAh capacity, or so I hear.

 

[czAtlantis]

I really hate the marketing crap "..can be recharged by dropping into glass of water..." No, It cannot be recharged. It can be ACTIVATED by adding water. It if could be recharged by adding water, it wil be a fusion reactor and you will recieve Nobel price!

Also they are propagating this as "superECOfriendly because it runs on water" - another nonsense. It is NOT eco friendly. It is in fact much less eco freindly compared to regular battery because it uses magnesium which uses lot of power to produce and the battery uses only a fraction of the stored energy also because it uses very poor electrolyte you will add.

Also shelf-life of 10 years is quite nothing...Energizer lithium cells have even higher shelf-life and the capacity after 10years will be much better.

Bottomline - nice gadget but useless

EDIT: I also read it could be used in remotes...well why would I need to power my TV remote in some disaster appocalypse? And for normal use i would guestimate it will have massive selfdischarge.
Similar batteries are used in radioprobes on weather baloons and once activated they last max few hours used or not. I even found one radioprobe and checked the battery - it was generating significant heat even after disconnecting the probe (massive selfdischarge). Next day it was dead. I think these nopopo cells will be better but I will bet they won't last more than 3months once activated.

 

[donutz28]

I'm glad to see at least one person not fooled by the 'marketing'.

I'll stick with the Energizer lithium for those rarely used AA powered devices.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Nothing new here....I was getting NoPoPo until 10th grade! :crackup: (Sorry, just couldn't let that one pass.)

 

[march.brown]

I'm glad to see at least one person not fooled by the 'marketing'.

I'll stick with the Energizer lithium for those rarely used AA powered devices.

This is an amazing invention ... You don't have to worry about whether or not a cell will leak in your remote ... This new cell contains water and will definitely leak ... No need to worry or wonder any more ... This battery has got built-in leakage ... Waterproof torches will now be built to prevent leakage into your pocket ... If your torch is not water-proof , that is great ... If you take it out in the rain , it will "recharge" itself up to five times ...
Amazing ...

 

[march.brown]

Nothing new here....I was getting NoPoPo until 10th grade! :crackup: (Sorry, just couldn't let that one pass.)

It's called Limb-Po-Po !
.

 

[broadgage]

I believe that something similar was offered decades ago.
"code red" or similar, these were zinc carbon primary cells that had a very long shelf life, the liquid was contained in a sealed capsule within the cell.
To put the cell in to use, the top and bottom ends of the cell were twisted relative to each other, this fractured the capsule containing the electrolyte and after a minute or two the cell could be used.
Never popular as expensive and of very limited capacity.

 

[czAtlantis]

Also there are zinc-air batteries which are "charged" by oxygen from air. They have quite good capacity/volume ratio and high shelf-life

 

[march.brown]

Also there are zinc-air batteries which are "charged" by oxygen from air. They have quite good capacity/volume ratio and high shelf-life

Do they need a contiuous supply of "fresh" air ?

Torches are pretty well a sealed box so no fresh air would be left inside to charge the cell.

If the oxygen was used up inside the torch , there would be a partial vacuum inside the torch.

Maybe the battery only needs to be exposed once to the atmosphere to charge it.
.

 

[Yamabushi]

Do they need a contiuous supply of "fresh" air ?.

Zinc-air batteries use the reaction 2Zn + O2 > 2ZnO and need the oxygen in approximately 1 litre of air for 1Ah of power.

 

[march.brown]

Zinc-air batteries use the reaction 2Zn + O2 > 2ZnO and need the oxygen in approximately 1 litre of air for 1Ah of power.

There's not much air in my ITP A3's or A2's !

For a 600mAh battery you would need a torch the size of our cloakroom to get that ammount of fresh air , not that our cloakroom would supply any really fresh air !

I will stay with Eneloops.
.

 

[Shadowww]

There's not much air in my ITP A3's or A2's !

For a 600mAh battery you would need a torch the size of our cloakroom to get that ammount of fresh air , not that our cloakroom would supply any really fresh air !

I will stay with Eneloops.
.

Zinc-air batteries are used in hearing aids (and similar devices), where you need to pack a lot of capacity in a tiny & light package. They aren't meant for flashlight use (not as if they'd be able to supply current needed to run a flashlight, either).

 

[Yamabushi]

For a 600mAh battery you would need a torch the size of our cloakroom to get that ammount of fresh air , not that our cloakroom would supply any really fresh air !.

You've misplaced the decimal point ... 600 mAh = 0.6 Ah requiring 0.6 litre of air, but that's still not practical. Also, passive absorbtion of air is OK for a hearing aid battery but to get a high rate of current for a flashlight you'd have to force the air though the battery somehow.

 

[march.brown]

You've misplaced the decimal point ... 600 mAh = 0.6 Ah requiring 0.6 litre of air, but that's still not practical. Also, passive absorbtion of air is OK for a hearing aid battery but to get a high rate of current for a flashlight you'd have to force the air though the battery somehow.

Right ... My ITP A2 would need to be force fed with air (ram-jet principle) to be the equivalent of an Eneloop AA.

I will stay with Eneloops for the time being.
.

 

[Wrend]

It's my understanding (could be wrong) that once you expose them to air that they need to be used soon or their charge will get wasted.

I used them in a pager/e-mail Timex watch several years ago and had to replace the cells frequently. Something like once a month or every couple of months.

 

[czAtlantis]

None of these technologies are suitable for flashlights and "our" modern use :-). Just remember those batteries (zinc-air) were mainly used 80years ago...in those times you had nothing much else - lead acid, nickel-iron ar maybe ni-cd. All of them are very heavy for mobile use and dangerous (liquid electrolyte). Now we have liion, lithium primary and advanced ni-mh (eneloops). There is really no use for those old technologies in mainstream use.

 

[HighlanderNorth]

I really hate the marketing crap "..can be recharged by dropping into glass of water..." No, It cannot be recharged. It can be ACTIVATED by adding water. It if could be recharged by adding water, it wil be a fusion reactor and you will recieve Nobel price!

Also they are propagating this as "superECOfriendly because it runs on water" - another nonsense. It is NOT eco friendly. It is in fact much less eco freindly compared to regular battery because it uses magnesium which uses lot of power to produce and the battery uses only a fraction of the stored energy also because it uses very poor electrolyte you will add.

Also shelf-life of 10 years is quite nothing...Energizer lithium cells have even higher shelf-life and the capacity after 10years will be much better.

Bottomline - nice gadget but useless

EDIT: I also read it could be used in remotes...well why would I need to power my TV remote in some disaster appocalypse? And for normal use i would guestimate it will have massive selfdischarge.
Similar batteries are used in radioprobes on weather baloons and once activated they last max few hours used or not. I even found one radioprobe and checked the battery - it was generating significant heat even after disconnecting the probe (massive selfdischarge). Next day it was dead. I think these nopopo cells will be better but I will bet they won't last more than 3months once activated.

This has little to do with batteries, but you mentioned that magnesium takes lots of energy to produce. I know the primary method of extracting/producing magnesium in the USA and maybe elsewhere is from salt brine, ie. from sea water. That means unlike most other elements/metals, magnesium isnt extracted by mining, its removed from sea water. I have no idea how much energy is needed for that process, but I know that aluminum requires HUGE volumes of electrical energy to produce. In fact, aluminum producers are always located nearby an electric generating plant, because it takes lots of electrical energy to split the bonds between aluminum and oxygen in the aluminum oxide(alumina) from the bauxite mineral source.