Battery failures occur for a number of reasons including:

• Batteries can have faulty cell design

• Batteries can be manufactured under uncontrolled processes

• Batteries can be operated in uncontrolled conditions

• Batteries can be abused

• Batteries can degrade and lose power (this is actually not a defect but the natural lifecycle of a battery during normal usage)

Battery Cell Design Faults

This include weak mechanical design, inadequate pressure seals and vents, the specification of poor quality materials and improperly specified tolerances can be responsible for many potential failures.

Uncontrolled Manufacturing Processes include

This badly run production facilities which lead to cell short circuits, leaks, unreliable connections, sealing quality, mechanical weakness, and contamination. An example of a manufacturing process out of control is variable coating thicknesses of the active chemicals on the electrodes would affect cell capacity, impedance and self discharge.

Uncontroled Operating Conditions

This perfectly good batteries fail when you use operate them in conditions where they shouldn’t be like: using the battery in a device that it was not specifically designed for, charging the battery with an incorrect adapter/charger, extreme environmental conditions (most handheld consumer batteries operate best when ambient temperatures are between 32°F-95°F), and physical damage.

Abuse

Abuse means deliberate physical abuse by the end user as well as accidental abuse which may be unavoidable. This may include dropping, crushing, penetrating, impacts, immersion in fluids, freezing or contact with fire.

Battery Degradation and Power Loss

A battery over time degrades and eventually stops working, this is no surprise, but why this occurs is really a fascinating yet technical process. These reasons are complex issues that are way beyond user control and are wholly contained within your battery and within your device! These reasons for battery degradation and power loss over time is due to declining capacity, increasing internal resistance, elevated self-discharge, and premature voltage cut-off on discharge.

By Dan Hagopian

Related Articles