We’ve all experienced that fear-inducing moment when you open up your phone only to be greeted by the “Low Battery” warning. It always seems to happen in the earlier half of the day when you still need to survive the rest of the work day and the commute home. If you have an older phone, you may find yourself having to carry your charger around with you throughout the day in anticipation of that unsettling notification. While there is no preventing your phone’s battery from weakening over time, there are steps that you can take to slow its degradation.
Source: American Chemical Society.
1. You no longer need to let your battery drain completely before recharging — in fact, partial discharges are recommended. Nickel-based batteries, which used to rule mobile phones, have a “memory effect” in which some of their capacity is lost, or “forgotten,” if they are consistently recharged with a partially full battery. But smartphones now use lithium-ion batteries whose capacity is determined by how many lithium ions it can nestle into its two electrodes. Each time you go through 100% of a charge cycle, the battery loses some of its capacity. Constantly draining your phone’s battery down to nothing will degrade it much more quickly. So if your phone is at 50% when you wake up in the morning, you can charge it worry-free while you get ready for work.
2. Avoid hot temperatures! Heat speeds up the chemical reactions inside your phone, causing faster drainage and, ultimately, a diminished capacity. Excessive heat caused by factors such as leaving your phone in a hot car or on the beach can also cause a thermal runaway, in which the liquids in your phone’s battery will start to boil, building pressure until the battery explodes. And while the heat of your body won’t cause a meltdown, it is enough to contribute to a weakened battery, so try not to carry your phone in your pocket either.
Source: American Chemical Society.
3. If you are traveling to another country where you will not be using your phone for a while, make sure you don’t leave it without a charge. Because a battery with no charge can become unstable, modern batteries will trip a self-destruct circuit before destabilizing. It’s great for avoiding explosions but it also, unfortunately, means that your phone will never work again. To avoid this, make sure the charge is at approximately 50% before turning your phone off for the duration of your trip. For even longer-term travels, be sure to turn your phone back on every six months and make sure that it’s still half-way charged.
Source: Washington Post
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