Primary batteries industry

The effect of this Directive on the european primary battery industry should have been limited, as neither alkaline-manganese nor zinc-carbon batteries contained significant quantities of these metals, certainly well below directive levels, if any at all. 

Since the primary battery industry had invested heavily in making their products... 

Batteries. Many batteries intended for household use contain mercury or mercury compounds. In the form of red mercuric oxide [21908-53-2] mercury is the cathode material in the mercury—cadmium, mercury—indium—bismuth, and mercury—zinc batteries. In all other mercury batteries, the mercury is amalgamated with the zinc [7440-66-6] anode to deter corrosion and inhibit hydrogen build-up that can cause cell mpture and fire. Discarded batteries represent a primary source of mercury for release into the environment. This industry has been under intense pressure to reduce the amounts of mercury in batteries. Although battery sales have increased greatly, the battery industry has aimounced that reduction in mercury content of batteries has been made and further reductions are expected (3). In fact, by 1992, the battery industry had lowered the mercury content of batteries to 0.025 wt % (3). Use of mercury in film pack batteries for instant cameras was reportedly discontinued in 1988 (3). 

The primary manganese dioxide-Zn battery industry still controls the small-battery market. The ratio between batteries and rechargeable batteries is still about 10 1, and although the global battery market will nearly double by the year 2001, this ratio will stay practically the same, because the primary market is estimated to grow by 70 percent (actually stealing only 2-3 percent from the primary market). 

The battery industry has seen enormous growth over the past few years in portable, rechargeable battery packs. The majority of this surge can be attributed to the widespread use of cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDA s), laptop computers, and other wireless electronics. Batteries remained the mainstream source of power for systems ranging from mobile phones and PDA s to electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The world market for batteries was approximately 41 billion in 2000, which included 16.2 billion primary and 24.9 billion secondary cells. 

Dry cells have been well-known for over 100 years and form the technical basis of today s modern dry cell industry. Zinc carbon cells are the most widely used of all the primary batteries worldwide because of their low cost, availability, and acceptability in various situations. The two major separator types ever used or in use are gelled paste and paper coated with cereal or other gelling agents such as methyl-cellulose. The paste type is dispensed into the zinc can, and the preformed bobbin is inserted, pushing the paste up the can walls between the zinc and the bobbin. A typical paste electrolyte uses zinc chloride, ammonium chloride, water, and starch or flour as the gelling agents. The coated-paper type uses a special paper coated with flour, starch, regenerated cellulose. 

By far the largest sector of the battery industry worldwide is based on the lead-acid aqueous cell whose dominance is due to a combination of low cost, versatility and the excellent reversibility of the electrochemical system, Lead-acid cells have extensive use both as portable power sources for vehicle service and traction, and in stationary applications ranging from small emergency supplies to load levelling systems. In terms of sales, the lead-acid battery occupies over 50% of the entire primary and secondary market, with an estimated value of 100 billion per annum before retail mark-up. 

The dynamies of the secondary-lead industry are quite different from those of the primary-lead industry. For many years, battery serap has been the sole domain of... 

The Directive batteries constitute less than 10% of the general purpose batteries marketed in Europe today. As these are typically rechargeable systems, they remain with the consumer far longer than the primary types. In those countries collecting all batteries, studies undertaken by the battery industry, in collaboration with the collection authorities, have shown that more than 95% of the batteries collected fall outside of the European Battery Directive. 

The battery industry developed a statistical method for determining the concentration of mercury in the waste stream at any point in time, and used this to predict the future date by which all of the mercury within primary batteries will have passed through the waste stream. This method, which uses date code analysis was developed over a period of many years through stockpile analyses in Germany, Sweden, Belgium and The Netherlands. It is employed annually in Europe to forecast the decline of residual... 

In order to ensure that the mercury concentration of primary batteries will indeed fall to background, one must ensure that the european market is closed to the importation of batteries containing levels above background. The European Battery Directive, 91/157/EEC, still allowed for batteries containing up to 250 parts per million of mercury to be sold. The battery industry petitioned the European Parliament to close this loophole. In response, they introduced a technical adaptation, 98/101/EEC, which prevented the addition of any mercury in primary general purpose batteries sold in Europe. 

The battery industry in Europe has also added additional insurance to ensure that primary batteries manufactured with no added mercury can indeed be recycled without the need to allow for high cost mercury capture and treatment facilities. This has been done by introducing an invisible ink, only visible under ultra violet light, into the labels of all alkaline cylindrical batteries sold in Europe. This allows rapid and extremely accurate sorting of mercury free batteries out from the remainder. 

As Europe has a vast steel industry, there is more furnace dust generated compared to Waelz kiln capacity and as a consequence, some electric arc furnace dust is still landfilled. The addition of primary batteries to the feed within these facilities increases the prospect of the dust being taken for recycling by the Waelz kiln operators. 

For over thirty years lithium primary batteries gained consumer and industrial awareness. They became well known for their performance in very diverse military... 

Soluble-cathode lithium primary batteries most times contain very toxic cathodes and flammable solvents. These types of batteries are seldom seen outside of the military in sizes larger than a button/coin cell. They are common in some heavy industrial or remote processes including oil-drilling operations. They are extremely common in many military forces throughout the world. 

Flat plate cells are usually made with electrodes spread on screens or grids like lead-acid batteries or industrial Ni-Cd batteries. In these types of batteries the electrodes itself are good metallic conductors To build manganese dioxide batteries as plate cells good conductive screens would be needed. A well known example for a bipolar Mn02-Zn cell in commercial production is the 6 Volt Polaroid camera film battery, a primary battery with a weakly acidic electrolyte. 

Especially important for proper operation of the battery are the impurities contained in the metal used for leady oxide manufacture. Lead for the battery industry is derived from ores mined in different parts of the world (primary lead) or is obtained by recycling of used up batteries that have reached their end of fife (secondary lead). The recycling process is very often performed at the battery manufacturers facilities. Purity standards have been adopted for the lead to be used for leady oxide production. These standards specify different maximum allowable amounts of impurities for flooded and valve-regulated lead-acid battery applications. Table 5.2 presents typical purity specifications for lead for making leady oxide for flooded batteries. 

It is increasingly common in current Industrial and scientific literature on the subject of batteries to come across the misuse of the words anode and cathode for the negative and positive electrodes respectively. When referring to a primary battery it can be justified. However, for a secondary battery, the misuse of these words should be banned because it leads to significant confusion. 

The importance of recovered lead in the battery industry is growing most of the manufacturers use this type of lead and have their own recovering facilities. As a result, the market for primary lead for this industry has decreased steadily, especially during the last 5 yr. 

---