Alkaline batteries became the standard over decades in the market - billions are sold every year. With so many bought, sold, and disposed of every year, and the millions and millions of tons of waste they create (few are recycled), so further propagates a ‘bug’ that is a result of the chemistry and its means of providing electrical power. By ‘bug,’ we simply mean a non-ideal feature that is a negative artifact of a design choice. At first glance, this bug may not be so obvious, but it is there and we all suffer from it in a variety of ways.
The voltage decay of an alkaline battery means that the battery will provide less power as time goes on. This is why your flashlight gets dimmer as you use it and also why many alkaline batteries are thrown away before their powering potential has been fully utilized. In fact, we believe that most alkaline batteries are thrown away prematurely once their voltage has dropped enough to notably affect their performance as the user will perceive this as an indication that the battery is close to running out of power. In some use cases, such as door locks, there will come a point where the voltage of the battery has decayed sufficiently that the battery cannot provide enough power to the lock to open the door. Into the trash go those partially used batteries despite them having, admittedly lower voltage, energy still available on board.
This bug does offered the designers of products the ability to use this voltage decay as a means to by-proxy measure the state of charge of the batteries. This is an inexact method, but the only real benefit that can be found in this bug. The design tradeoff was an easy decision many decades ago when a single use battery was a marvelous innovation. Portable power was possible and that spawned countless innovations that we now take for granted.
Fast forward many decades, past leaded gas, past cassette tapes and VHS, past incandescent light bulbs and almost everyone is still using alkaline batteries despite the advent of so many improved technologies and battery chemistry innovations.
At Paleblue, we firmly believe that a better battery would be one that delivers strong and stable power from start to finish. This is why we chose to maintain a strong stable voltage, empowered by the sophisticated electronics on every Paleblue lithium-ion battery – our Battery Management System, i.e. “BMS.” While it may seem like a minor point, it opens the door for the designers and engineers of myriad products to advance the performance and reliability of their products. We are certain that the future of consumer electronics and batteries will be synergistic and more considerate of the end user than ever before.
Date last modified: October 3, 2024
