The Battery World - Types and Applications(part 1)

The Battery World - Types and Applications
As the electronic technologies advances, our lives are filled with more and more battery operated products including toys, household appliances, computer, communications, consumer electronics, and transportation equipment. Batteries play an important role in supplying energy to these electronic products. With the use of batteries, human life becomes more convenient and efficient. But with all the kinds of batteries being used in the market, do you know what kind of battery you are using? Let's explore the world of batteries. Types of BatteriesTo simply put, batteries are "electricity" storage devices that in general, are divided into 2 categories: chemical battery and physical battery. When most people talk about batteries, they are referring to the chemical batteries that utilize chemical compounds as the source of energy which convert the reactions between chemical and conductive materials into electricity. On the other hand, physical battery utilizes light or heat and converts them into electricity. Since there aren't too many physics battery applications in the computer, communication, and consumer electronics products in the market, we will focus only on the chemical batteries in this article. Chemical battery can be further broken down into two sub-categories: Disposable and Rechargeable Batteries. Disposable Batteries - An example of disposable batteries are the common alkaline batteries found in a regular store. Disposable batteries are thrown away after the electricity had been used up. Disposable batteries are convenient but they are more costly in the long run and could create more hazards to our environment. Rechargeable Batteries - Examples of rechargeable batteries are Nickel-Metal Hydrate (Ni-MH) and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries. Although they are rechargeable, they do have limited number of charging and discharging life cycles. Depending on the chemical used in the batteries and the individual's usage patterns, the number of charging and discharging life cycles range approximate 300 ~ 1000 times, making rechargeable batteries more economical in the long run and a lot more environmentally friendly than disposable batteries.