What happens to batteries in extremely cold or hot temperatures? Do they still work?
by 
Spixxy
ANSWERS: 3
-
Batteries are designed to work in a fixed range of tempreture such as room temp. Because all batteries are, is a collection of electrons waiting to be released, the surrounding heat has the effect of either slowing them down in a cold enviroment or speeding them up in a hot enviroment. Therefore, batteries in a cold enviroment will have a lower voltage and higher voltage in a hot enviroment. As for useage, batteries have to work a lot harder in a cold climate and so will flatten much quicker - but, if you warm the batteries up, you will get a little more life out of them. Hot batteries will last longer than batteries in room tempreture, but they become unstable and are liable to explode!
-
It depends on which battery technology. Lead-acid batteries will have different operating characteristics than carbon, alkaline, NiCd, NiMh, lithium, polymer, etc. All normal batteries depend on a chemical reaction to push electrons and most of these chemical reactions happen faster and freer at warm temperatures (perhaps between 60F and 100F) so a really cold battery won't deliver the current or life of a moderately warm battery. Cold enough and it won't work at all. Usually it will be fine when thawed again. A lead-acid or other wet-cell could if rupture frozen solid. At sufficiently high temperatures, the chemical constituents of the battery may "cook" sufficiently to change the chemicals so they are no longer electrically reactive. It may also cause the internal pressure to blow the battery apart.
-
When batteries are used out of the normal evironmental tempertures, you also get less recharages. A more detailed answer: Temperature has a pronounced affect on battery life (Recharges and length of use). For every ten degrees of change in room temperature, Up to 50% of it,s life is lost. So a thousand charges are reduce to 500. But who is counting beyond ten or so. Even with 300 charges, so much time has past that I would believe that my battery failure was due to normal use. But Lead-Acid batteries can handle overall neglect the best. As do other older technologies in general. Cold is the better option if given a choice except as indicated by the first answer, wet batteries will crack if frozen.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC