Batteries now a days is one of the most important components of electronics appliances and is used in almost every portable electronic device and as well as toys from Drones, to phone, and tablets to automobile EVs one common electronic component you find is the battery.
The current battery market reached around USD 113.4 billion. And this market keeps increasing with the development of EVs and the expansion of portable electronics and wearable electronic devices.
From a various range of devices like Phones to EVS to drone to Automobile the battery and type also differs and is based on use cases. Like in most toys, remotes we use certain different types of batteries, and for devices so let’s understand the depth of these battery types.
The first main classification of battery is on two types ie primary batteries and secondary batteries.
Primary Battery
Primary batteries are non-rechargeable disposable batteries Once fully drained, primary cells can’t be recharged and you can say it’s a single cycle battery. They consist of the chemical inside it that get consumed with time and use and once it’s fully drained you need to dispose of it.
Main Types of Primary Battery:
Alkaline batteries:
This type of battery drives the energy by reaction of zinc metal and manganese oxide and we named it an alkaline battery because instead of using an acidic electrolyte we use an alkaline electrolyte like potassium hydroxide (KOH).
Advantages:
- More life
- Shelf life is more.
- Small in size.
- Highly efficient.
- Low internal resistance so that discharge state in idle state is less.
- Leakage is low.
Aluminum–air batteries:
This is the highest energy density battery and produces energy from the reaction of oxygen with aluminum and once the aluminum is consumed and all-aluminum gets reacted with air oxygen we can’t use this battery further and we need to dispose of it after a single use.
Dry Cells:
This is another type of primary battery and most of us are used it in our toys and Tv remote control but these batteries are now getting replaced by alkaline batteries because of their high lifetime and energy density over the dry cells. tHe dry cell is named after its electrolyte type as we sue use the dry electrolyte in it instead of liquid or wet electrolyte.
There are many other kinds of primary batteries as well but we mostly use mentioned above the battery.
There are the following another kind of primary batteries or you can say disposable single cycle batteries.
- Lemon/potato battery
- Lithium battery
- Lithium–air battery
- Magnesium battery
- Mercury battery
- Molten salt battery
- Nickel oxyhydroxide battery
- Oxyride battery
- Organic radical battery
- Paper battery
- Pulvermacher’s chain
- Silver-oxide battery
- Solid-state battery
- Sugar battery
- Voltaic pile
- Penny battery
- Trough battery
- Water-activated battery
- Weston cell
- Zinc–air battery
- Zinc–carbon battery
- Zinc–chloride battery
- Zamboni pile
Battery Power density Comparision Table
| Battery Type | Energy Density (Wh/kg) | Life Cycle | Toxicity |
| Li-Ion | 126-190 | 500-1,000 | Low |
| Ni-Cd | 45-80 | 1000 | High |
| Ni-MH | 100 | 300-500 | Low |
| Li-ion polymer | 185 | 300 – 500 | Low |
| Lead Acid | 30-50 | 200-300 | High |
| Lithium–Sulfur | 55 | 50-100 | Non- Toxic |
Secondary Battery
These kinds of batteries are multicycle batteries we can recharge these batteries and use this kind of battery in many cycles of recharge. We mostly use these kinds of batteries in EVs, Phones, Automobiles, Portable gadgets, and in many different areas. Based on environmental conditions and kind of need and use we further have different types of secondary batteries and one of the most popular kinds of primary batteries that we use in most places are the Li-Ion battery, Li-Polymer Battery, and Lead Acid battery.
Li-Ion Batteries:
This kind of battery uses Lithium metal so named Li-Ion battery. These batteries are composed of cells and lithium ions from the negative electrode move to the positive electrode and when we charge the ions move back to their place this cycle occurs in each charging and discharging process.
The power density of Li-ion batteries is 126 Wh/Kg.
Li-Po batteries:
The Li-Po battery lithium polymer battery and we named polymer battery because they use polymer electrolyte instead of liquid electrolyte. The high conductivity gel polymer form of electrolyte is used. These batteries carry high energy density compared to their weight this they are mostly used in drones due to their lightweight and high density of energy.It has a Power density of 185 Wh/Kg.
Ni-MH batteries:
Ni-MH (nickel metal hydride ) battery uses nickel oxide hydroxide and they are quite similar to Nikel cadmium NiCd battery but here they use a hydrogen-absorbing alloy instead of cadmium. And have a lower impact on the environment compared to others. The power density of these batteries is 100 Wh/Kg.
Lead-acid batteries:
The lead acid battery has electrodes submerged in sulfuric acid electrolyte. These batteries are quite bulky and are mostly used in automobiles, UPS, Grid power stations, etc.
- Aluminium-ion battery
- Calcium battery
- Flow battery
- Vanadium redox battery
- Zinc–bromine battery
- Zinc–cerium battery
- Lithium-ion battery
- Lithium-ion lithium cobalt oxide battery (ICR)
- Lithium–silicon battery
- Lithium-ion manganese-oxide battery (LMO)
- Lithium-ion polymer battery (LiPo)
- Lithium–iron–phosphate battery (LFP)
- Lithium–nickel–manganese–cobalt oxides (NMC)
- Lithium–nickel–cobalt–aluminium oxides (NCA)
- Lithium–sulfur battery
- Lithium–titanate battery (LTO)
- Thin-film lithium-ion battery
- Lithium–ceramic battery[2][3]
- Rechargeable lithium–metal battery
- Magnesium-ion battery
- Metal–air electrochemical cells
- Lithium–air battery
- Aluminium–air battery
- Germanium–air battery
- Beryllium–air battery
- Molten-salt battery
- Microbial fuel cell
- Nickel–cadmium battery
- Nickel–cadmium battery vented cell type
- Nickel–hydrogen battery
- Nickel–iron battery
- Sand battery
- Silver–zinc battery
- Silver–calcium battery
- Silver–cadmium battery
- Sodium-ion battery
- Zinc-ion battery
Useful Links
You can calculate the battery runtime at the following link.
Want to know, how to design BMS, click the following link.
Guide to selecting the right battery for your EV design
If we have missed any kind of batteries, please email us at [email protected] and we will include that within this article.
