* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    The Police Made Chart History With This 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago – Yahoo

    How The Police Changed Music Forever with Their Iconic 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago

    Good Deed Entertainment Acquires Worldwide Rights To Liza Mandelup’s Documentary ‘Caterpillar’ – Deadline

    Good Deed Entertainment Lands Global Rights to Liza Mandelup’s Captivating Documentary ‘Caterpillar

    Danielle Fishel Explains Why Being on “DWTS” Makes Her Feel ‘Like It’s 1994 Again’ Filming “Boy Meets World” (Exclusive) – Yahoo

    Danielle Fishel Explains Why Being on “DWTS” Makes Her Feel ‘Like It’s 1994 Again’ Filming “Boy Meets World” (Exclusive) – Yahoo

    Jussie Smollett Claims He Was ‘Disrespected’ on the ‘Special Forces’ Season Premiere – Yahoo

    Jussie Smollett Opens Up About Feeling ‘Disrespected’ During the ‘Special Forces’ Season Premiere

    TicketSmarter Fall Entertainment Guide – Eastern Illinois University Athletics

    TicketSmarter Fall Entertainment Guide – Eastern Illinois University Athletics

    Cardi B Adds More Dates to Little Miss Drama Tour: ‘Y’all Making Me Work’ – Yahoo

    Cardi B Extends Little Miss Drama Tour: “Y’all Making Me Work

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Four Strategic Signals Technology Leaders Are Tuning In To – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM ARM – Harvard Business Review

    Four Essential Strategic Signals Every Technology Leader Should Watch

    Virginia Tech hosts annual New Music + Technology Festival this week – Cardinal News

    Virginia Tech Kicks Off Exciting Annual New Music and Technology Festival This Week

    Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee – The Guardian

    Why I Decided to Make the World Wide Web Free for Everyone | Tim Berners-Lee

    From shale to steam: Fossil fuel technology boosts clean geothermal energy – Washington Examiner

    From Shale to Steam: How Fossil Fuel Technology is Powering a Clean Geothermal Energy Revolution

    How Sustainable Technology is Shaping a Greener Future – Technology Magazine

    How Sustainable Technology is Driving the Revolution Toward a Greener Future

    Aurora police hope to add facial recognition technology to crime-fighting tools – CBS News

    Aurora Police Aim to Boost Crime-Fighting with New Facial Recognition Technology

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    The Police Made Chart History With This 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago – Yahoo

    How The Police Changed Music Forever with Their Iconic 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago

    Good Deed Entertainment Acquires Worldwide Rights To Liza Mandelup’s Documentary ‘Caterpillar’ – Deadline

    Good Deed Entertainment Lands Global Rights to Liza Mandelup’s Captivating Documentary ‘Caterpillar

    Danielle Fishel Explains Why Being on “DWTS” Makes Her Feel ‘Like It’s 1994 Again’ Filming “Boy Meets World” (Exclusive) – Yahoo

    Danielle Fishel Explains Why Being on “DWTS” Makes Her Feel ‘Like It’s 1994 Again’ Filming “Boy Meets World” (Exclusive) – Yahoo

    Jussie Smollett Claims He Was ‘Disrespected’ on the ‘Special Forces’ Season Premiere – Yahoo

    Jussie Smollett Opens Up About Feeling ‘Disrespected’ During the ‘Special Forces’ Season Premiere

    TicketSmarter Fall Entertainment Guide – Eastern Illinois University Athletics

    TicketSmarter Fall Entertainment Guide – Eastern Illinois University Athletics

    Cardi B Adds More Dates to Little Miss Drama Tour: ‘Y’all Making Me Work’ – Yahoo

    Cardi B Extends Little Miss Drama Tour: “Y’all Making Me Work

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Four Strategic Signals Technology Leaders Are Tuning In To – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM ARM – Harvard Business Review

    Four Essential Strategic Signals Every Technology Leader Should Watch

    Virginia Tech hosts annual New Music + Technology Festival this week – Cardinal News

    Virginia Tech Kicks Off Exciting Annual New Music and Technology Festival This Week

    Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee – The Guardian

    Why I Decided to Make the World Wide Web Free for Everyone | Tim Berners-Lee

    From shale to steam: Fossil fuel technology boosts clean geothermal energy – Washington Examiner

    From Shale to Steam: How Fossil Fuel Technology is Powering a Clean Geothermal Energy Revolution

    How Sustainable Technology is Shaping a Greener Future – Technology Magazine

    How Sustainable Technology is Driving the Revolution Toward a Greener Future

    Aurora police hope to add facial recognition technology to crime-fighting tools – CBS News

    Aurora Police Aim to Boost Crime-Fighting with New Facial Recognition Technology

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Why are there so many different kinds of batteries?

April 14, 2024
in Science
Why are there so many different kinds of batteries?
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

If you’ve looked in your utility drawer lately, you may have noticed the various shapes, sizes and types of batteries that power your electronic devices. First, there are the round, non-rechargeable button cells for your watches and small items. There’s also the popular AA and AAA cylindrical batteries for calculators, clocks and remotes. Then you have the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in your laptops and phones. And don’t forget about the lead-acid battery in your car.

I’m a professor who studies batteries and electrochemistry. To understand why batteries come in many different sizes and shapes–and serve many purposes–look to the past, at how batteries originated and how they have developed over the years.

The first batteries were made in the 1800s, and they were quite simple. One of the first demonstrations was a series of metal discs soaked in brine, which Italian scientist Alessandro Volta found created an electric current. The first lead-acid battery was made of a few pieces of lead in a jar of sulfuric acid. The modern versions are not that different. They’re just easier to manufacture and contain various additives to improve performance.

In all cases, batteries perform in the same manner: a voltage difference between two dissimilar electrodes produces an electric current, which can be discharged to power a device. Rechargeable batteries can then reverse this current to charge back up. Inside the battery, the electric current is accompanied by the flow of ions through a liquid, the electrolyte.

The passage of each electron in the current is accompanied by the transport of one ion through the electrolyte. Electrodes that can store more ions lead to batteries that can hold more charge and therefore last longer on a single charge. Electrodes that are engineered for faster ion storage lead to batteries that can discharge faster, for high-power applications. Lastly, being able to charge and discharge many times without degrading leads to batteries with long lifetimes.

Lead-acid batteries

The lead-acid battery was the first rechargeable battery invented back in 1859 by Gaston Plante, who experimented with lead plates in an acidic solution and found that the flow and storage of electric current could be reversed.

A lead-acid battery has to be big enough to provide enough charge to start a car. It also has to be usable in cold climates and last many years. Since the electrolyte is a corrosive acid, the external casing has to be tough to protect people and car parts from any possible harm. Knowing all this, it makes sense that modern lead-acid batteries are blocky and heavy.

Alkaline batteries

On the other hand, household devices like calculators and digital scales can afford to use smaller batteries because they don’t require a lot of charge. These are primarily non-rechargeable alkaline batteries that have been used for decades. The standardized cell sizes are AAAA, AAA, AA, C and D, as well as button and coin cells and many others. The sizes are related to how much charge they store – the bigger the battery, the more it holds–and the sizes of the devices they power.

Sometimes, you may find alkaline batteries sold in rectangular shapes, like common 9-volt batteries, but open the outer casing and you’ll find that they are simply a few cylindrical cells connected together inside. Cylindrical batteries have been around so long and used so widely that it just doesn’t make sense for the companies to manufacture anything different–it would require an investment to change their manufacturing facilities, something they’d rather not do.

Why are there so many different kinds of batteries?

Lithium ion batteries

Nickel-cadmium batteries were the first widely used rechargeable batteries for household electronics and were popular through the end of the 20th century. But they had their pitfalls. Cadmium is very toxic, and the batteries suffered from a “memory effect,” which decreased their lifetime.

For many decades, lithium was studied for potential use in rechargeable batteries because of its unique properties as a lightweight metal that stores a lot of energy. Sony first commercialized the lithium-ion battery in 1991.

The company made cylindrical cells because these were the easiest to manufacture. In the 1990s, Sony was making lots of camcorders and tapes, and thus had lots of equipment for roll-to-roll manufacturing. It was natural to repurpose this equipment to produce rolls of battery electrodes, which are made by casting films on sheets of copper or aluminum and then rolling them up into a “jelly roll” cylinder.

jCylindrical batteries are made of many thin layers rolled up like a jelly roll. Credit: OpenStax/Wikimedia, CC BY

The thick casing of these cylindrical cells is mechanically strong, and to add another layer of safety they have a pressure relief valve. Very quickly, these early lithium-ion cells took over the portable electronics market, especially for laptops and cellphones, because they stored more energy and lasted longer than the nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries.

Factors that shape batteries

Batteries are made in certain sizes and shapes for reasons of cost and manufacturability, but in other cases because of legacy manufacturing processes. Market demand also plays a role.

For example, electric vehicles didn’t take off until Tesla started making cars using cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells rather than the rectangular pouch or prismatic cells other EV makers have used. Pouch and prismatic cells can be packed closely together, but because cylindrical cells were already being mass-produced for portable electronics, Tesla was able to make lower-cost EVs in the 2010s.

What shapes and sizes batteries will take in the future depends not only on how much energy they store, but also on market economics – how easy it is to make each type of cell, how much it costs to make them and what they’re used for. And those factors are a mix of innovation and history.

Disclosure: Wesley Chang receives funding from SolidEnergy Systems and the Electric Power Research Institute.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Popular Science – https://www.popsci.com/technology/why-so-many-batteries/

Tags: differentkindsscience
Previous Post

12 awe-inspiring landscape photos showing off Earth’s beauty

Next Post

The history-altering medical mystery of an astronaut who fell in the bathroom

City of Malibu Eases Event and Sign Permitting Requirements to Support Post-Fire Economic Recovery – City of Malibu

Malibu Simplifies Event and Sign Permitting to Boost Post-Fire Economic Recovery

September 30, 2025
The Police Made Chart History With This 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago – Yahoo

How The Police Changed Music Forever with Their Iconic 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago

September 30, 2025
WISD weighs in on Michigan Board of Education’s proposed health education changes – WEMU

WISD Takes Action on Proposed Changes to Michigan’s Health Education Standards

September 30, 2025
Elon Musk hit by exodus of senior staff over burnout and politics – Financial Times

Elon Musk Confronts Surge of Senior Staff Exits Amid Burnout and Office Politics

September 30, 2025
Common juniper, the oldest nonclonal woody species across the tundra biome and the European continent – ESA Journals

Unveiling the Common Juniper: The Ancient Woody Survivor Spanning Tundra and Europe

September 30, 2025
What Forensic Science Is and How to Become a Forensic Scientist | Education | U.S. News – U.S. News & World Report

Unlocking the Secrets of Forensic Science: Your Guide to Becoming a Forensic Scientist

September 30, 2025
BLM celebrates International Archaeology Day at the Campbell Creek Science Center – Bureau of Land Management (.gov)

BLM Celebrates International Archaeology Day with Exciting Events at Campbell Creek Science Center

September 30, 2025
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope Today (Nov 22- Dec 21), September 30, 2025: Lifestyle will get refined! – India Today

Sagittarius Daily Horoscope Today (Nov 22- Dec 21), September 30, 2025: Lifestyle will get refined! – India Today

September 30, 2025
Four Strategic Signals Technology Leaders Are Tuning In To – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM ARM – Harvard Business Review

Four Essential Strategic Signals Every Technology Leader Should Watch

September 30, 2025

Latest sportsbook receives Missouri license through partnership with Royals – KCTV

September 30, 2025

Categories

Archives

September 2025
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  
« Aug    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (843)
  • Economy (865)
  • Entertainment (21,739)
  • General (17,324)
  • Health (9,908)
  • Lifestyle (877)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (866)
  • Politics (875)
  • Science (16,074)
  • Sports (21,364)
  • Technology (15,847)
  • World (846)

Recent News

City of Malibu Eases Event and Sign Permitting Requirements to Support Post-Fire Economic Recovery – City of Malibu

Malibu Simplifies Event and Sign Permitting to Boost Post-Fire Economic Recovery

September 30, 2025
The Police Made Chart History With This 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago – Yahoo

How The Police Changed Music Forever with Their Iconic 1979 Hit Nearly 50 Years Ago

September 30, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version