Exploring the Battery types, advantages, disadvantages, and applications

Batteries, The storage of your electrical energy

What is called Batteries?

Batteries are significant and essential energy storage devices that can supply power to all our modern applications. It is used to supply energy at a place and time when other power or energy sources like electricity or renewable energy sources are not available.

Batteries can be found in your mobile, your car, your solar power system for your home, and most of our vital life applications. In one of the previous articles, we discussed the energy storage system (ESS) and discussed it in general.

Battery banks for electrical energy storing

In this article, we will go through batteries deeply and discuss them in detail explaining their types, advantages, disadvantages, and applications. Also, we will highlight the internal parameters of the batteries. Let us start with a brief about batteries, what the battery is, and how it works.

How does a Battery work?

Batteries consist of two electrodes. The first one is called the Anode which represents the negative electrode that discharges electrons to the load in the external circuit while the second is the cathode which is the positive electrode that captures these electrons.

These two electrodes have different materials and are emersed in an electrolyte that contains ions that flow between the two electrodes. Based on the type of both electrodes and the electrolyte, a chemical reaction is established causing a flow of electrons from one electrode to another.

When batteries are connected to external circuits and the chemical reaction starts, the anode electrode starts releasing negatively charged electrons through the load while at the cathode electrode, the chemical reaction occurs and collects these negative charges, and then causes the ions to flow through the electrolyte from the cathode to the anode.

The working principle of Lithium Battery

 What are the main parameters of the battery?

Batteries as storage devices have internal parameters that determine the Batteries' performance during the charge and discharge processes. It also explains the effect of other factors like the measured temperature of batteries.

Current and voltage:

The flow of the negatively charged electrons to the load is the electrical current (I) while the electrical potential difference between the two electrodes that makes the electrons flow in the circuit is called the battery voltage and is measured in volts (v).

Batteries’ capacity:

The battery capacity is defined as the amount of energy (electrical charges) that the battery can supply and store. Normally this capacity is measured as amperes-hours (Ah) or milliamperes-hours (mAh) for the small capacities. This capacity refers to how long the battery can supply a specific amount of current (before needed of recharging for the rechargeable batteries).

Discharging and charging process:

During the operation of the batteries, the batteries discharge their stored electrical energy generated from the chemical reaction to the load through the discharging process. The process of restoring or building up electrical energy again in the battery when a reverse current in a reverse chemical reaction is applied is called the recharging process.

Batteries’ Self-Discharging process:

The self-discharging process is the loss of charges through the battery over time even when the battery is not operated and is out of use. This process is established according to the internal chemical reactions and it varies according to the type of the batteries.

Batteries’ lifetime:

The battery's lifetime is affected by several parameters that could reduce the time of using the batteries. These parameters could be represented as battery type, Operating temperature effect, and number of recharging cycles as well as the discharging profile. The degradation and the batteries’ chemical reaction also reduce the life of the batteries over time.

What are the advantages of Batteries?

Batteries have many advantages that make them the best choice for the energy storage system can supply electrical energy easily when required by the needed capacity

Batteries have a variety of sizes that could be used in a wide range of applications starting from small electronic devices like kids' toys and mobile phones as a power supply for their sensors to large-scale industrial applications and renewable energy source systems.

• The performance of the batteries is very steady and stable, especially for slow-changing loads.
• Rechargeable batteries (compared to single-used ones) give the ability for cost saving over time.
• Compared to fossil fuels as energy sources, batteries are considered an environmental friend as there is no carbon emission coming from batteries during operation
• Batteries supply instant and direct power without any preparation processes like warming up or startup action and no start-up time.
• Batteries are portable power supplies especially low sizes which enable them to be built-in devices without external plugging or power banks for small scales.
• Batteries can deliver high currents like lithium batteries.

What are the batteries' disadvantages?

Although batteries have advantages, batteries have some weak points considered as disadvantages. These disadvantages are minors and will not be a problem if treated well. These disadvantages are:

• Limited lifetime where after time, batteries cannot hold their charge and need to be replaced.
• The performance of batteries is affected by the weather conditions. Based on the battery capacitance–temperature chart, batteries may lose their charge faster than the normal operation-measured temperature. While over temperature could damage batteries.
• Inside batteries, there are toxic materials like lithium, lead, cadmium, and mercury which are considered hazardous materials for humans and plants if they leak or are wrongly disposed of.
• Large-scale energy projects need a large number of batteries which significantly affects the needed area as well as high cost.
• Batteries' low response is not required in the fast-changing loads.
• The charging time of the batteries is high, especially in large-scale projects which is considered a problem if you need immediate power.

What are the types of Batteries?

Many types of batteries are classified based on their materials these types are listed as follows:

1. Lead-Acid Batteries.
2. Lithium-Ion Batteries
3. Nickel-Cadmium Batteries
4. Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries
5. Alkaline Batteries

What are the uses of Batteries?

Because of all the listed previous advantages and performance, the batteries are used in most of our electrical devices such as:

• Portable devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets, and portable lighting.
• Electric Vehicles where Batteries play a very important role in electric and hybrid cars and buses.
• Batteries are used in automatic control systems as a backup to power the software program memories to keep the program available all the time.
• Batteries used in electronic circuits that contain semiconductor materials that need power all the time like kids’ toys and drones.
• Batteries are used with renewable Energy Storage where the excess energy that is generated from wind and solar energy through solar cells and solar panels is stored in batteries and reextracted again in the time that the renewable sources are not available.