Industrial Battereis

[Graham.]

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[Jeff Gaines]

I tend to buy industrial batteries (AA & AAA) because they are a fair bit cheaper than consumer batteries.

I am beginning to think they don't last as long, any views?

[alan_m]

Are you referring to Duracell Industrial (previously called ProCell) and now again called Procell?

I gave up on them a few years back when the quality changed very much for the worse. They no longer last and leak like a sieve when they start getting towards the end of their life, or if left in equipment for less than a year.

I now favour Energiser for AA and AAA Alkaline.

For batteries in my wireless temperature sensors in the fridge and freezer I use Energiser Ultimate Lithium. Although expensive they work down to -40C whereas alkaline batteries are unreliable in the freezer as they are only specified to -20C

[Tim Streater]

I use these in the sensors for my garage doors. They have the longest life of any I've tried so far.

[John Rumm]

One of the original claims for the "industrial" cells was simply that you could not easily buy them in the shops... so businesses could better identify staff pilfering the company stock of batteries!

[alan_m]

+1 At one time you probably had to have a trade account and had to purchase them in quantities much greater than in shops. Ebay changed that but the batteries were often much cheaper than the equivalent shop items and from many Ebay sources.

There was Ebay seller who sold Duracell Procell (later named industrial) cheaper than the Ebay competitors and claimed sales in the 100s of thousands. It later transpired when they were forced out of business they owed the tax man quite a lot, Duracell a lot and Royal Mail a lot. I believe fraud charges were brought.

[Jeff Layman]

They have some interesting chemistry inside...

[Paul]

The datasheet makes no specific mention of what would happen in a long term immersion of a battery. They don't want the contents exposed to water, and that's why the thing has the layers that it does. But I don't see anything guaranteeing against the cell eventually being penetrated by water internally.

Lithium Primary cell.

2 Li(s) + 2 H2O -> 2 LiOH (aq) + H2(g) [Exothermic]

You should see the datasheet that comes with sticks of dynamite :-/

Paul

[Jeff Gaines]

Many thanks for the replies, interesting :-)

The ones I have are indeed Procell, I think once they're used I'll go back to standard domestic batteries.

[The Natural Philosopher]

What makes you think that there is any lithium *metal* in the cells at all?

[Jeff Layman]

Because there is a small amount - less than 1g according to:

(This agrees with the product data sheet, which says the battery contains less than 1g. The SDS says it contains about 6% of lithium or lithium alloy. As the AA weighs about 15g, this confirms the lithium content)

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. 'less than' does not equal 'equal'.

The lithium is in the electrolyte, as a salt.

[John Rumm]

I find the bulk packs of either Energiser or Philips batts from CPC work out quite well - decent life and reasonable price.

(I have got a box of their own brand "Proelec" to try - but not used those yet so won't comment).

[Theo]

I've been using Proelec AAAs and they've been fine. Don't really use them regularly enough to compare with any other type (most hungry devices now have integrated lithium ion cells, which leaves primary batteries for low-drain low-use things like remote controls and such).

Theo

[Jeff Layman]

Partially correct. The SDS at

states it contains "Lithium iodide - 0.3-3%". But it also states: "Lithium or Lithium Alloy - 6.3-6.6% / AA 5.4-5.5% / AAA" and "In case of fire where lithium batteries are present, flood area with water or smother with a Class D fire extinguishant appropriate for lithium metal"

Finally, from

:Battery Description: Cylindrical lithium iron disulfide batteries use lithium for the anode, iron disulfide for the cathode, and a lithium salt in an organic solvent blend as the electrolyte. From the diagram showing cutaway construction: Anode - lithium metal

[Clive Arthur]

<snip>

Lithium primary cells do, or at least did, coin/button cells and the like. Lithium metal anode. Also, the specialist high-temperature (180'C, expensive!) Lithium cells do, certainly.

[John Walliker]

I wonder how they stop the lithium from melting in the battery at those temperatures? Li has a melting point of 180.5 deg C? John

[Paul]

But you saw the Youtube video, right ?

You saw the alkali metal response to water.

We don't know what the exact (layered) setup of the foil is, but at a guess, the outside layer is an alkali metal. Maybe the substrate of the foil, tends to be flammable. (Or, it could be the chemical residue on the ribbon, which aids in the response.)

That's a more vigorous response than the one you get in schooling, where they take a piece of sodium from sodium-under-oil jar, and drop that into water. How that one differs, is it is not self-igniting as easily. Other materials in that series of the periodic table, are more energetic.

We also had a TV series, shown on Saturday mornings, where they walk through the entire periodic table, demonstrating the elements. And you get to see the vigorous reactions of some of them.

"In 1988 Showalter became the series demonstrator in a 26-program PBS education series by Annenberg/CPB, The World of Chemistry, opposite with series host, Nobel prize winner Roald Hoffmann. While Hoffmann introduced a series of concepts and ideas, Showalter provided a series of demonstrations and other visual representations to help students and viewers to better understand the information."

We call this family the alkali metals. They make up Group 1 in the periodic table. The first element is lithium, and then there's sodium, and potassium. Down here is rubidium, and this one is cesium. And do you notice anything that they all have in common? You probably see that they're all stored in very unusual ways.

I'm gonna take a piece of this lithium and put it into the water. And watch what happens, how it Starts to fizz a little bit. The fizzing now is the reaction of lithium with the water to produce hydrogen gas. Let's try the sodium. I'll get a small piece of that, not too big, because we don't want the reaction to be too violent. Oh, that reacts much faster, doesn't it? See the sodium bouncing around there, again fizzing, giving off that hydrogen gas. Okay. Let's try potassium, the most reactive of the three. I'll get a small piece of that and put it into the water. Wow! That really reacted violently. Did you see the immediate reaction of the potassium? Again, it's formed that hydrogen gas and the hydrogen gas was ignited.

Using a thin ribbon, having a decent surface area, accelerates the reaction. If the foil continued to be rolled up, the reaction could not consume the material with the same speed, which is where some of the "safety" comes from.

Paul

[Clive Arthur]

I don't know (and I doubt they'd tell me). Some of them can go up to

200'C - maybe the construction is such that being liquid doesn't matter? Certainly liquid Sodium is used in some cell types, but they don't work when the Sodium is frozen.

Battery packs made with this type of cell are often used in pairs, one new one and one partially used one. Initially, the partially depleted battery is used, and when it's just about empty, a circuit switches the fresh one in. That way you don't waste very expensive energy by throwing away batteries with some life left in them.

[John Walliker]

Sodium sulfur batteries could be fun. I saw one at the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque a long time ago. It needed a thermite charge to get it going, but it had a very long shelf life. The sodium would definitely have been molten.