Battery size and types
What are the different sizes and types of batteries?
Before we take a look into the battery sizes and types, let us briefly discuss the battery chemistry. The conventions of specifying the voltages in batteries has somewhat changed with the introduction of the newer types. In old batteries, voltages were specified in increments of 1.5 volts, and with an increased number of such cells in a battery system, the higher voltage rating was achieved. Battery chemistry has changed, with the newer one bringing re-chargeable NiCd and NiMH batteries with 1.25 volts as the output voltage of each cell. Some of the devices run by batteries may not operate with re-chargeable ones, but most handle them reasonably well. There are devices that require a larger current drain, and would require lithium type batteries to operate properly. The sizes of the new batteries refer to the battery size and chemistry, while the others do not.
Many of the manufacturers assign their own names and numbers to the batteries, which create confusion. This is in disregard to the conventions, such as, colloquial, IEC, and ANSI, for example LR44 battery. The manufacturer put their own brand names to the batteries for the simple reason that the customers gets to know them and buy their manufactured battery every time. Suppose your TV remote battery needs replacement, and when you open the cover it would say "Replace with CX472 type battery", and you would get a replacement by that name. The name specified is the product model manufactured by a specific company, and you would not know that there are several of these batteries available manufactured by other companies.
At times, batteries with some obscure name will become a specific brand model of the most common name for a battery size, with other manufacturers copying that name or deriving a name from it. There are several types of batteries available, and are mostly known by their standby time and talk time capacities. The different types of such batteries include Li-Ion, Li-Polymer and Ni-Cd.
Li-Polymer, the Lithium Polymer battery has a dry polymer design, which offers simplifications with respect to fabrication, ruggedness, safety and its thin-profile. The battery does not use any liquid or gelled electrolyte and hence is not inflammable. Li-Polymer is the most heavy duty and durable battery that is available, but its cost prevents from it being widely used.
NiCd stands for Nickel Cadmium. These batteries have a fast and even discharge, and compared to other batteries, NiCd batteries are widely available and are cheaper than the others. Never-the-less NiCd batteries lose out to Li-Polymer on the points of its weight and stand-by time.
Li-Ion stands for Lithium Ion, and such batteries are widely used now-a-days. Li-Ion batteries have the perfect combination of low cost, light weight, and good talk time, and is a high density device, with output voltage of 3.7 volts, uncommon amongst other batteries, but are being used widely in the portable equipment market. The positive electrode in the battery, usually called the cathode, uses lithium metallic oxide, while for its anode, which is its negative electrode, the battery uses carbon material. During charging and discharging of the battery, the lithium ion gets transferred between the cathode and the anode. The high density specification of the battery makes it smaller in size and weight.
The types of batteries discussed so far are the typical ones that are used commonly today. There ae several others, such as, Zinc-carbon battery, Silver-oxide battery, Lithium Iron Disulphide battery, Mercury battery, etc. Silver-oxide battery is commonly used in hearing aids, while Mercury battery was formerly used in digital watches, radio communications, and portable electronic instruments, etc. These batteries are not re-chargeable, and are termed as disposable batteries.
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