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By: Jonathan Kwan (Debut Review)November 19, 2005
Let''s face it: We can''t stick with disposable alkalines all our life, especially when we have high drain devices that we use all the time, such as digital cameras and MP3 players. Why? Even if you have bottomless pockets, the landfill site does have a limit. And so does our environment.
Many years ago (And we are talking about over 10 years ago) Ni-Cd were the standard for rechargeables. Before digging into the positives and negatives of Ni-Cd batteries, let''s first understand how it works.
To all those technical-knowledge-obsessed people, a Ni-Cd cell is based on the reversible electrochemical reactions of cadmium and nickel in a potassium hydroxide (alkaline) electrolyte. At the negative electrode (cathode) the cadmium oxidizes to cadmium hydroxide (Cd(OH)2) on discharge whilst the hydrated nickel compounds at the positive electrode (anode) are reduced to nickel hydroxide (Ni(OH)2). Notice that the potassium hydroxide (KOH) electrolyte simply acts as a charge carrier.
The chemical formula for this would then be:2Ni(OH)2+Cd(OH)2 <=> 2NiO OH + Cd + 2H20
If you have no idea or don''t care how a Ni-Cd battery works, all you need to know is that a Ni-Cd battery offers high cycle life and extremely durable.
However, these type of batteries are not used today because cadmium is a toxic substance and not environmental friendly at all. Ni-Cd batteries does not hold charge for a long time either, you have to charge it before use. Also, it has a "memory effect", which means that you will have to drain the battery all the way down before a recharge.
Fast forward to today, you can get Ni-MH batteries from many retail stores. These kind of batteries are also a type of rechargeable battery, similar to Ni-Cd batteries, but without the expensive and environmental hazardous cadmium. In terms of capacity, it has a better capacity than Ni-Cd batteries therefore used a lot in high drain electronics such as digital cameras and MP3 players. It doesn''t suffer from the "memory effect" either.
You might wonder, however, what the heck is the "metal" in nickel metal hydride? It is actually an intermetallic compound. Two major categories of compounds has been created for this application. The most common is AB5. In A, it is usually titanium and/or a rare earth mixture. For B, it is nickel, cobalt, manganese, and/or aluminum. In AB2 compounds, which is what higher capacity electrodes are based on, contains titanium and/or vanadium in A and B is zirconium or nickel, modified with chromium, cobalt, iron, and/or manganese.
Alright alright. Let''s get to the point. Today we are reviewing neither Ni-Cd nor Ni-MH batteries, we are reviewing rechargeable alkaline batteries from Pure Energy! More precisely, it''s the new Pure Energy XL rechargeable alkaline set.
Our review sample of the Pure Energy XL rechargeable alkaline set came in a nicely packed box from Pure Energy.
What we got from Pure Energy is 8xAA and 8xAAA Pure Energy XL rechargeables. Also included is the XL Smart charger. (We''ll dig into the "Smart" issue later)
First we''ll take a look at the batteries.
Aesthetically, I had to admit, they look pretty nice. It is very visually appealing and definitely copes with today''s battery design.
As opposed to other rechargeable batteries such as Ni-MH ones, and continuing the Pure Energy tradition, they are usable right out of the box. First, we decided to put some of the batteries into different devices such as MP3 players, while we put the other ones into the charger.
By the way, I have to mention, these batteries traveled all the way from Nova Scotia to here in Alberta in November, and left outside in my mailbox overnight in the Canadian winter. (Blame it on Canada Post -- I didn''t intentionally do this)
Well anyway, all our electronics detected these batteries as fully charged. The XL Smart Charger started charging the batteries but stopped charging after around five minutes. Pretty good, especially if it has been outside in ten below zero Celsius overnight.
Isn''t that just great? Rechargeables usable right out of the box! It''s only rechargeable alkalines that can do this...
The capacity of the AA batteries are 2000mAh, while size AAA ones have 800mAh. The capacity matches most Ni-MH batteries, although still lags behind disposable alkalines by a little bit. According to Pure Energy, the capacity of XL batteries has increased from standard Pure Energy rechargeable alkaline''s 1600mAh to XL''s 2000mAh. (Don''t you just love these suffixes? Maybe they will come out with Pure Energy XT rechargeables :P )
I am not going to dig into all the technical data, but you can read Pure Energy technical data sheets for these batteries.
Anyway, these batteries sure look good on paper -- but how do they perform? Very good. In fact, it''s impressive compared to the standard ones. They outlasted the standard ones by about 20%, which is pretty good. The old ones has good performance, but worns out pretty fast. These new ones, I am not exactly sure -- I have them for about a week. I can honestly tell you that these impressed me more after a week than the old ones did after a week of usage.
The shelf life for these has not been tested, either. The old ones did have a good shelf life, I left them (and forgotten them) somewhere in my drawer for about 3 years, and still holds the charge nicely. I am pretty confident that these would be even better. But hey -- these are rechargeables. You can also recharge them, even if it holds charge for about 6 months. 7 years on paper is pretty good.
For cycle life, I recommend you to charge these as often as you can. Deep discharge is never a good idea with any of today''s modern batteries -- whether it''s Ni-MH, lithium or rechargeable alkalines. Don''t believe me? Try it for yourself and you will understand what I mean. (Do this at your own cost though :P )
You do get the best of both world -- and pretty darn close to as advertised. Yes -- you save a lot of money (and the environment) because it''s a rechargeable, you (can almost) get the performance of an alkaline battery, and excellent shelf life. What I found myself doing all the time is carrying another battery with me and use the initial one for a bit and then swapping the second one in way before the first battery is even close to used up -- just to gain more cycles. Maybe you would do this too...
Anyway, I guess you are all dying to know about the XL smart charger.
The first time looking at this charger, it reminds me of a spaceship-pod kind of thing. It is still a pretty cool design, and you can leave it on your desktop and leave it plugged in all the time (Which I do anyway) and load up the batteries for charge when necessary. It is very convenient compared to the EnviroCharger.
Here is the charger manual you would get in a retail package.
As you can see, the new charger uses a technique called "pulse charge" instead of "taper charge" used by previous chargers by Pure Energy such as the EnviroCharger.
Anyway, now you know why the XL Smart Charger advertises that it increases battery life? They just don''t say it just for the sake of advertising...
So how smart is this charger anyway? It does have a microprocessor built in (Doesn''t everything does nowadays?) If you read the XL Smart Charger manual above, it claims that the charger (Or more like the microprocessor):
- Detects old and damaged batteries- Rejection of batteries inserted backwards- Detects and rejects disposable batteries- Short circuit and overvoltage protection
We don''t have any old rechargeables to test, but we do have single use alkaline batteries. We put it into the charger and...
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