A battery needs no introduction. Batteries are the power source in all sorts of direct-current applications, which is to say all portable devices, from smartphones to automobiles. Yes, the automobile is a portable device, although maybe to it you and I are what’s portable. In any case, batteries have come a long way since Edison invented the light bulb and promoted direct current rather than alternating current as the means of providing electricity to the masses. It was a battery that caused the President of the United States in 1889 to receive a shock so severe he was thereafter afraid to touch a light switch ( http://bit.ly/SP0l1W).
What has made batteries newly useful is their rechargeability. The lead-acid battery in our gasoline-powered automobiles are rechargeable via either the car’s generator or alternator. Alkaline batteries are not rechargeable because alkaline chemistry is not rechargeable, but many other chemistries are: nickel cadmium, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer, nickel-metal hydride, the list goes on. ( http://electronicproducts-com-develop.go-vip.net/Power_Products/Battery_options_expand_for_portable_devices.aspx; http://electronicproducts-com-develop.go-vip.net/Power_Products/Batteries_and_Fuel_Cells/What_is_the_best_type_of_battery.aspx; http://electronicproducts-com-develop.go-vip.net/Power_Products/The_next_frontier_in_battery_technology_Rechargeable_lithium.aspx; .
Aluminum plates within an aluminum-air battery.
The latest advancement comes from the aluminum company Alcoa and an energy company called Phinergy. The companies are working on aluminum-air batteries (http://bit.ly/1b59Uta) for electric vehicles that promise a range of 1,000 miles. The battery certainly has the attention of the electronic design engineering community ( http://electronicproducts-com-develop.go-vip.net/Power_Products/Batteries_and_Fuel_Cells/Notes_from_Advanced_Automotive_Battery_conference_show_Atlanta.aspx?terms=rechargeable). Expect more to come.
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