Natural Science Forum / Chemistry / Electrochemistry / December 2007

I''ve had my LaCrosse BC-90U for a about a week now from Tomas Dist
and it seems to work just fine.  It came with a case, C and D apadtors
and an extra set of batteries.  There was a delay getting it for some
reason, but they are now shipping.  For some reason they were not

I have just recieved for christmas a gps navigation device and it
only came with a car charger. It has a fairly common usb looking
connector on the device and i noticed that its the same as my
blackberry pearl phone. The charger for the phone says "5 volt

Is there a definitive answer?  I just bought my first charger that allows me
to pick the charging current (LaCrosse 900u).  The charger defaults to its
lowest current (200mA) when I insert my AAs but I've read that NiMH like a
higher current.  What's the latest & greatest?

I have some lithium-ion batteries from laptops. Is there any reason
why I couldn't repack them and then use them in my cordless drill?
The packs are theoretically plenty to run a drill - especially as I
can pack them in series-parallel etc.

Are Zinc-Air batteries really rechargable?  A firm offers a solar-driven,
CC-size device that is supposed to charge the small, button-size 1.2 - 1.5v
zinc-air battery.  Does this sound realistic?  Doable?
Tks!

Hello, since some years, rumours about the "fuel cell revolution" are
bouncing here and there.. People say that "soon, fuel cells will
massively invade the consumer electronics market and by just sone
drops of ethanol will power our mobile phones, laptop computers,

Are they all in china?
I'm looking for a source of 2700 - 5000-ish mAh cells in roughly
50x100mm, but not made in china.
I've had spectacularly bad experience with chinese cell vendors, and I

Safety and Repacked Lithium-ion batteries with Thermal Fuse
Hi
What happened? When did just 'using' batteries get so complicated?
I've learned that lithium-ion batteries can be hazardous. (Thanks to

Having these batteries both in a Palm and a cell phone, I have been
wondering what treatment would maximize the battery life: a) cycling
between full charge and very low (i.e. 10% to 20%) charge, or b)
recharging when the battery is down to approximately the 70% level.

"A co-worker said the victim was bleeding from the nose and his
shirt had soot in the shape of a phone."
"There were burns on his left chest, and fractures of his ribs
and spine as well as haemorrhaging in the lungs."

We are trying to produce porous anodic aluminum oxide. So far we have
use to different substrates. One is an aluminum foil the other is an
aluminum film (a 30 micrometer thick RF sputtered film) which we have
deposited on top of a highly conducting silicon wafer.

Colleagues
I am new to the group and new to the Electrochemist software. As a
learning exercise, I am trying to simulate cyclic voltammetry of
"wired" enzyme modified electrodes as put forth by Adam Heller and

Given 4 batteries A,B,C,D - all with equivalent voltages If A,B,C are
connected in series and D in parallel with one of the batteries - does
it matter with which Battery D is in parallel with?
e.g. A,B,C in series and D in parallel with A. or

Who owns the US patent for Lithium ion and Lithium polymer battery
technology?